Light Of My Life
by thinkwinkink
Summary: Hydra experimentation on civilians results in the forging of an ally for the Winter Soldier in the latter part of the twentieth century. Made into a genetic freak and left to rot following the organisation's collapse, the Little One is utilised for revenge against the heroes held responsible. (Warnings for torture, violence, death)
1. Chapter 1

**Small Farming Village outside Kyiv, USSR  
3** **rd** **August, 1968**

"Оксано? Ти тут?" Anton called, swinging open the door of the small cottage. He stepped tentatively into the house, calling softly out to his sister.

No one had seen Oksana in two days, since the violence at the Sunday market, and Anton had grown worried. His boots crunched on broken glass as a sick feeling grew in his stomach.

The fire in the hearth had burnt out days ago. The furniture was in disarray, much of it broken. The beautiful crockery she had lovingly displayed in the cabinets lay in worthless shards on her kitchen tiles. There was a drying pool of what was probably blood on the floor of the living room, but he couldn't bear to look any longer.

He burst back out into the front garden, gasping for air. His older sister was gone. No doubt, she had been taken by the same people who had been terrorising their village for months. Sometimes they requisitioned supplies, sometimes they forced people to go and work their land or in their factories – their stories were never consistent. But at the weekend market, when everyone from miles around gathered at their humble marketplace to sell their goods, they had made their biggest show of strength yet. Several military vehicles rolled up, depositing a handful of soldiers into their midst. They followed a man clad in all black but for an elaborate metal gauntlet or sleeve, though some claimed his arm itself was metal.

They beat aside farmers and shoppers, men and women alike, seeking out seemingly random people and hauling them back into the trucks, ignoring their cries. Nobody could say where they were taken, but if it was wherever the others had gone, it was unlikely they would return.

Whether these people worked for the government or not, no support was forthcoming, and the situation seemed that it would only worsen over time.

Anton forced himself upright. He thought of his wife and his little Halina. He had a family to look after, and he determined to keep them safe. Their sleepy village and prosperous orchard could no longer offer them the safety they deserved.

With a deep breath, he resolved to set aside his grief over his lost sister and friends, and make plans.

Plans to take them far away from here.

 **Strasbourg, France  
19** **th** **March, 1985**

Halina looked over her shoulder, pulling her coat around her as she hurried through the streets. She couldn't see anyone looking at her with particular interest, but nor could she shake the feeling that she was being watched. Followed. It had been three days now, and she couldn't work out what was wrong.

Maybe she needed to get her head checked out.

Normally, a young woman, uneasy walking through the city streets after sunset, would breathe a sigh of relief upon arriving home. It wasn't the night or the city making the back of her neck prickle though. It was something so much harder to define, and it followed her into her building, upstairs and into her flat.

Throwing her bag and jacket on the armchair nearest the door, she headed straight for the kitchen. Perhaps a warm cup of tea or the calming voice of her parents could help her relax. She set the kettle to boil and dialled home, breathing deeply and reminding herself that there was nothing to be afraid of, no indication that anything was wrong, really.

"Так?" came her mother's gentle voice down the line.

"Мамо, це я," she replied, clutching the phone to her ear tightly, as though it could bring the same comfort as her physical presence.

"Oh, my little Halina! How is the job going?" she asked excitedly.

Halina pressed the phone between her ear and shoulder, pouring hot water carefully into her favourite mug. "Good, good. I'm really fitting in there, Mama," she said, tossing her teabag in the bin.

"Oh, that is wonderful news. When are you coming back to visit? I know your тато wants to show you the work he's done on the garden," she said ruefully. The village in which the little family had lived since arriving in France when Halina was just a girl was an hour away from the city by car, and several towns over from the nearest train station.

She laughed, a little breathlessly. "Tell him I can't wait to see it. Maybe I can finally relax if I stay there for the weekend," she mumbled.

"What's that? Is life in the big city too stressful for you, sweetheart?" she fretted.

Halina bit her lip as she spun in a circle to unwrap the phone cord from around her body, which always got tangled when she made something while on the phone, probably because of a poorly thought-out kitchen arrangement. How to tell her mother than she might be going crazy, and if not had a stalker. A really sneaky one.

As she twirled, something out her window caught her eye. On the top of the building across the street, which was a floor higher than her own three-storey building, what looked like a person up on the roof. They quickly ducked out of view.

Maybe it was a bird. A trick of the fading light. A maintenance man on an urgent call.

Maybe it was a highly proficient stalker.

"I've just had this weird feeling, for the past few days… like I'm not alone. Like I'm being watched. I know I'm being silly, but…" she trailed off, still staring out the window, trying to catch another glimpse of the figure on the roof. If anyone had been there, they were gone.

"If you think someone is following you, call the police! What if it's some pervert who knows you live alone! Please, Halina, I know you've lived there for a while but you shouldn't get complacent with these things," she rambled, her voice steadily climbing the octaves.

She laughed weakly, trying to reassure both herself and her mother. "I'm probably just a little tired. I'll go to bed early tonight, and I'll come visit on the weekend. There's no reason for someone to be following me," she soothed, tipping her untouched drink down the sink.

"I really think…"

"Don't worry, Mama. If I see something concrete, I'll call the police. I think I'm going to get ready for bed. До побачення, Мамо," she said, barely waiting for the response before hanging up.

She had a quick piece of toast to tide me over until tomorrow morning, then quickly got ready for bed, practising breathing exercises until she finally fell asleep.

 **Strasbourg, France  
20** **th** **March, 1985**

The feeling hadn't gone away. As Halina left the office, she felt it swell, setting her stomach churning. Fighting down panic, she scanned the street. There were people walking around, largely in suits as the returned home for the day. She started her nightly trek back to her cosy apartment, hands involuntarily clenched into fists and shoulders bunched.

Waiting at a set of traffic lights, she happened to look up at the right rooftop to see a dark figure peering down into the street, the last rays of the sun catching on his gleaming left arm, completely covered in silvery metal. Her heart nearly stopped the moment she saw him, proof that she wasn't imagining things. But as she stared, and he seemed to gaze impassively back, she felt bile rising in her throat, accompanying sheer terror that came straight out of her memories of her true home.

That day, she had skipped along behind her mother and father, clutching a favourite toy soldier and length of ribbon she happily waved behind her. They were running late to the market, since there had been a problem back at the orchard – something about baskets? She couldn't remember, she'd been so young. They were down the road when the brutal men came with their guns and took people away, striking anyone who dared to protest. The screaming, panic, and heartbreak were not so easily forgotten. People she had known were kidnapped that day. Including her Aunt Oksana, probably, though the mysterious soldiers had made a special trip to take her from her house.

She remembered the man who cut through the crowd, sidling through the market with vicious malevolence, breaking bones and throwing tables laden with produce aside to reach his victims.

The man with the metal arm.

Tato had moved them west a few weeks after that, and they had heard no more of the disturbances since leaving the area. Seen nothing more of those men, those uniforms, that cold violence.

The people waiting with her surged across the road, jostling her. She lost sight of the man on the roof for a moment as she stumbled. The suited man apologised as he passed, but she ignored him, staring at the empty rooftop.

Where to go? A police station? She wasn't sure that the gendarmes would be able to protect her, and what would she even tell them? _Yes, hello, I saw a man on the roof and he looked like someone I saw when I was four years old in the Soviet Union. Please arrest him and give me a bullet-proof vest._

As her thoughts raced, she walked home out of habit more than a conscious decision. She found herself standing in front of the door to the upper stories, the ground floor being taken up by a clothing store.

It seemed likely that the man was after her, come to take her like he took her aunt. She didn't know what she had to offer him, but it was too big a coincidence for her to brush off. He must already know where she lived, so there was no harm in going inside, surely. She had already led him there before.

Coming to a decision, she quickly unlocked the door, slamming it shut behind her and sprinted madly up to the second floor, unlocking her door with shaking hands as quickly as she could. She fell into her living room, wrenching that door shut too.

The curtains were drawn from last night, and she didn't bother turning on the main light as she dashed to her kitchenette. She dived for the phone, punching in her parents' number as quickly as the adrenaline pumping through her veins would allow, flicking on the nearby light as she waited for someone to pick up.

A useless tear ran down her cheek and she battled to calm herself. Maybe she was imagining the man. Maybe he just looked like the figure from her nightmares. Maybe she wasn't about to die.

"Allo, c'est Anton," her father greeted in his accented French.

Halina was so anxious her words were a jumble of French and Ukrainian, but she hoped he would understand despite the constantly switching. "Tato, it's me. I saw the man. From home, the village. The man with the metal arm. Tato, I'm so scared, he's following me. He's after me, he's going to kill me. What do I do?" she sobbed hysterically.

Her father's agitated voice started asking questions she didn't hear, because a noise behind her made her whip around, pulling the phone away from her ear.

The man sat stock still in her armchair, regarding her without emotion. Panicked tones came through the speaker, adding a muted soundtrack to the scene.

Still shrouded in shadow, he stood, kicking aside a wooden end table as he approached her. He looked exactly the same. Long brown hair fell over his face, much of which was covered by a black mask. The heavy stomp of boots and swing of his shoulders made the screams of the villagers ring in her ears.

She didn't have a chance, really. He was between her and the door, but it was impossible not to try. Letting out a bloodcurdling scream, she threw the phone to the floor and ran for the door.

The man lunged for her. The hand not covered in metal, but only a black leather glove, caught her by the throat, cutting off her cry with a brief gurgle. He held her off the ground at arm's length, dead eyes watching as the light faded from her desperate ones and her legs stopped kicking.

Everything was black and cold.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hydra Base, USSR  
24** **th** **March, 1985**

Halina came to slowly. The first thing she became aware of was the pain. Her body was sore, her head throbbed to her heartbeat, and her throat protested each breath. She was also cold, and lying on an uncomfortable surface.

She moaned, then regretted it as the sliding of her vocal chords amped up the discomfort in her neck. She forced her eyes open.

Bleak grey wall leading up to a bleak grey ceiling. Carefully turning her head, she took in the rest of the room. All bleak grey, a tiny window with bars fitted to it, a toilet and a basin, plus a heavy metal door conspicuously lacking a handle.

A cell, then. What was she doing in a miserable jail? She sat up slowly on the bunk, furnished with a thin blanket and nothing else to soften the concrete. The room spun a little, but she didn't pass out.

After a few minutes of steadying breaths and trying to remember how she came to be imprisoned, she was still confused but dread lay thickly in her belly.

She'd been stalked and then strangled by the man from the village where she was born. But he hadn't killed her. It was possible someone had intervened to save her life, but it wouldn't explain why she was here. Her family were legal migrants in France. No, the man had brought her here.

She was distantly grateful to be alive, but more prevalently concerned about her current situation.

Her anxious musing was interrupted by activity outside her door. Footsteps, muffled male voices, then a clanking and scraping that sounded decidedly metallic.

The door swung open and a man in a lab coat stepped in, smiling a little and looking through the papers in his clipboard. He looked up and seemed cheered by her appearance. He seemed okay, but she was wary of him due to the circumstances.

"Good afternoon. I'm glad that you are awake," he said pleasantly in Russian, before cocking his head. "Can you understand me?"

"Yes," Halina replied. "My Russian is not as good as my Ukrainian or French, but I can understand." Her accent was a bit off and she was hesitant, but anyone born in the Soviet Union had to speak Russian, even if her parents preferred to speak to her in their local tongue once they moved to France.

"Excellent. We'll soon fix that, not to worry. Now, tell me, what were you doing all the way in Strasbourg?" he asked with friendly exasperation, like an amused parent when a child misbehaves.

Halina frowned. His words seemed more sinister than his manner let on, and it seemed wise to hold her tongue.

He frowned, but still agreeably. "You showed promising results back in 1973. Few of your classmates were able to withstand the exposure you did, and none with the improvements you seemed to enjoy," he noted as he flicked through his stack of paper again.

"Classmates?" she repeated, voice cracking. She winced a little at the way her throat twinged when she used it, no doubt thanks to the strangling, but the furrow in her brow was mostly in response to his comment.

"Yes, the tests run at your little school, near Kiev. Children's bodies respond very differently to the same procedures performed on adults. Many of the school's attendees were too weak, but you thrived. We've been looking for you, since you disappeared. How _has_ the treatment all those years ago affected your development into an adult, hmm?" The way he spoke was chilling, patronising her as though she were an infant, his sanitised cheer buoying him through his musings as he talked about some kind of secret experiments on little kids.

She stared at him in horror, and his smile grew sickly sweet. His neatly slicked back, black hair and white teeth gleamed in the light coming in through the little window, his tall frame looming over her.

"Come along, now. We have so much to do. And I'll tell you now, things are much easier if you do what you're told. I know you're strong, which means I don't have to fret about breaking a few bones here or there," he cooed, pinching her cheek. He headed for the door which was held open by a beefy man in a military uniform with a huge gun in his hands.

She was sure she didn't want to go with him, but she either walked or was beaten and dragged. She chose the lesser of two evils, reluctantly trailing the disturbed man out of her cell. She noticed once she stood that her feet were bare. She wore a plain, thin tunic that reminded her of a hospital gown. Crossing her arms for warmth, she glanced around the corridor.

Lots of grey concrete, lots of uniformed men with guns and lots of cell doors that looked like the one she had just left. They went up a flight of stairs, the stamped metal pressing uncomfortably into her skin, then along a much wider corridor.

They entered a room with a surgical table in the middle, a number of machines and tools gathered around it. She slowed her pace once she saw it. It was quite clear nothing pleasant was going to happen in this room, and that was her seat.

"Strap her down, please," the young man said, and two of the guards behind her grabbed her by the arms, lifting her off the ground.

Halina had always been short and thin, but not weak. She struggled weakly now, hungry and injured, head spinning from being upright too long and terrified out of her mind.

They forced her down, strapping her to the table with a number of restraints, then retreating to stand at the door.

A few more mad scientist types filed in, making a beeline for her.

She whimpered, making the first man laugh. She tried to lean away from the approaching men, tugging at her bonds but they held fast. Hands reached out to touch her, to take hold of needles and knives, to fiddle with dials and buttons.

Her screams were data, her pleas irrelevant side-effects in a grotesque science experiment. She was almost relieved when she fell into unconsciousness, neither her body nor her mind able to hold up against the battering it was being dealt.

 **l l l**

Every day for what could have been weeks or months passed in much the same way. They hurt her to see how she would react and heal. They took so many readings and asked questions she wanted not to answer but was too tired to keep to herself when they tried to make her.

After these sessions she was pushed back to her cell if she could walk, or dragged if she couldn't. Meals were passed through the slot in her door, which she tried to eat before passing out on her slab.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
22** **nd** **April, 1985**

Halina awoke sometime after dawn, the morning rays slanting into the bleak cell. It was disorientating, because apparently, she had woken up on her own, rather than being brusquely pulled upright or startled to consciousness by yelling or banging at the door.

Her body was sore, but not as much as usual. She had been left in peace since the afternoon before, and the last few days' testing had been mostly focused on brain activity and took a gentler toll.

She wandered over to the tray on the floor by the door, finishing the water and vegetables that she had been given, before returning to the 'bed' to rest for as long as she was able.

When she next opened her eyes, she would have guessed it were afternoon. Stretching gingerly revealed no new injuries, so she had to conclude she had been left alone all day.

She hadn't had so clear a mind since she had first come here, and her thoughts drifted to her family and friends. She had just… not shown up to work. Marie had been relying on her for a presentation. She was going to miss her neighbour Marc's birthday. Her father must think she was dead, based on that last phone call. She felt a tear slide down her face as she though how the last thing her gentle parents would ever hear from her was that she was afraid and then screaming. Maybe they heard the struggle as the man with the metal arm strangled her.

She lay sniffling and feeling sorry for herself, quite reasonably, until the sound of the door being unlocked came. She swang upright and wiped her face, schooling her expression into something more neutral. Appeals to humanity had gotten nowhere, so emotion was just a weakness that one of her captors might find intriguing. That always led to more pain, so it was best not to do anything unexpected.

One of the guards stepped into the room. "Встать, девушка," he ordered harshly, jerking his head for her to follow him.

She followed him out of the cell, up the stairs along the corridor. Instead of stopping at the normal room, though, he kept going several metres, passing several identical doors, before reaching a pair of double doors that looked like they could survive a nuclear blast.

One of the men stationed beside it entered in a key-code, and the other wound them open with a big wheel like on a bank safe. Nerves and dread crawled under her skin as they entered the new room. This one had some computers along one wall, with a few pieces of equipment and some medical supplies arranged around a menacing looking chair with lots of attachments and restraints.

Beyond a dividing handrail and down a few stairs was a pair of strange cylinders, large and translucent, lit from within in a faint blue glow. The disturbing thing was one of them seemed to have a human figure standing inside it, tall and muscular, and dressed in all black – except for the left arm. Her breathing sped. The man who had abducted so many people, including her, was right there. She was angry, and she was terrified. It was made worse with the realisation that she had seen and heard nothing to indicate any of the others we here, and they may well be dead.

She forced her mind to focus as a pair of arguing voices came into earshot.

"Her physical resilience is barely elevated! Admittedly the metabolism and restructured operation is fascinating, but what good is it if she won't heal much faster than anyone else? And the mental 'improvements' are likely to only make her harder to control. She shows no greater potential than an individual not subjected to the experiment," someone ranted in Russian that sounded a little German.

"We already have the greatest assassin ever known to history. We do not need another Winter Soldier," a second, familiar voice countered as two men in lab coats came into view. The taller one pressed an affectionate hand to the glass tube with the man inside. "But not every battle is best won with a bullet. I plan to forge a new kind of weapon, for when the case calls for a subtler approach. She has taught us much, but I am convinced she has great potential."

The shorter man looked displeased, muttering something in his mother tongue before storming off.

The man she hated most in the world straightened his clothes before striding over to her. She didn't fully understand what they had said, but it was pretty clear he was going to do something bad to her. Make her into a weapon? Like the man with the metal arm somehow? The Winter Soldier, they called him. She'd rather die, but she knew that was beyond her control.

"Well, hello there," he grinned, clapping excitedly. "Halina, it has been a pleasure, and I will miss you."

Halina jolted at the use of her name – nobody had addressed her by it the entire time she had been here. Did this mean he _was_ going to kill her? Perhaps she ought to be grateful but she didn't want to die, not deep down.

He laughed his sick laugh, like she'd told a joke over the dinner table. "Don't look so stricken! Go ahead and take a seat. We're going to start your treatment today; out with the old, in with the new, as they say. And you won't believe the improvements we've made on the formula," he chattered as the soldier behind her forced her into the chair, holding her down until the bonds were secure.

"I need to finalise the insertions, so we'll have to be patient with those, but since we got to you so young I'm positive the grafting will take. There's no reason we can't make a start upstairs though," he told her cheerfully as he shoved a rubber mouthguard between her teeth.

She didn't know what he was talking about but it inspired a deep sense that things were going to go from bad to worse for everyone in the near future.

The chair made a whirring, then a whining noise as it clamped onto her head. She tried to scrunch down away from it but the restraints over her chest didn't let her budge.

When the electricity jolted into her, she screamed so loudly through her mouthguard she forgot her own name.

When they dragged her tired body back to her cell, who and where she was came back to her slowly, like she was wading through thick soup to get to them. That thought didn't make much sense, but they were all so jumbled she couldn't bring herself to care. She liked potato and leek soup though. She thought she should make some when she got home.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
23** **rd** **April, 1985**

Another visit to the new room. Another painful session in the chair. When she came to in the middle of the night, it took several minutes of chasing slippery and random thoughts to pull together any meaningful memory.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
24** **th** **April, 1985**

She lasted longer in the chair. Someone was excited. For some reason it was bad though. She knew the person, she didn't like them. She didn't remember their name though. She knew it wasn't Marc, because he always wore such strong cologne.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
25** **th** **April, 1985**

The chair. Laughter. When she was ten, a boy at school made fun of her for her accent. She wondered if he made it to university like she did. She wondered if she made it to university like he did. He had a degree. Something like anthropology and something to do with money. How did she know that? She hadn't seen him since they were children.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
26** **th** **April, 1985**

The chair. An excited promise, in a language she knew but didn't really like for some reason.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
27** **th** **April, 1985**

She woke up with a blank mind. She felt troubled, then felt like it had happened before. She lay still, simply because she had no reason to move.

She felt troubled again, like she really had to go somewhere. She needed to leave, but why? Where did she need to go, and how would she find her way there?

She paced the room until the door opened and a man in a military uniform walked in. She waited to see what he would do, feeling distaste surge up from somewhere. She knew him. Or someone like him…

He led her to an unfamiliar room, though she felt she had walked this path before. A metal table was in the middle of the room. There were machines and all kinds of strange devices organised on tables with wheels. The stark white feeling of the room grated on her nerves, catching on little bumps where her mind was not yet brushed clean.

"Salle d'opération," she said. She frowned. She knew this place, and she wanted to leave.

"Lie down," said a man in a white coat with dark hair. She knew him too, and she wanted to leave.

She didn't understand her reaction, but he scared her. She turned to run, but the man who had brought her here caught her. He slammed her down on the metal bed and unseen hands tied her in place.

She wriggled and pulled. "Будь ласка, я не знаю–" she pleaded, breaking off as the sound of her words brought the image of a short woman in her late forties, with long dark hair… Her mother.

She fought harder until someone pressed a mask over her face. She fought but was quickly subdued by the anaesthetic.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
29** **th** **April, 1985**

"…had died by now doesn't mean this one will work. I don't care how special you think she is. I just think our time would be better spent elsewhere," an ugly voice said, words warped by layers of foreignness and a sour tone.

"Yours, perhaps. But I can do it. She will make it, and once she's accepted the donated genetics…"

The voices faded away again, replaced by a steady beeping noise that worried her, because it was too fast. She was so hot and so cold at the same time that she wondered if she was dead.

Once she was outside too long in winter after she had had a shower and her hair started freezing. She laughed, remembering her friend Maxine joking about it, though the words themselves escaped her grasp.

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
1** **st** **May, 1985**

Halina woke with a start. She was lying on the slab she used for a bed in her cell. She was placed on top of the blanket, rather than it being folded over her to try and provide comfort and warmth from above and below, so she knew she hadn't fallen asleep under her own power.

She spent nearly half an hour piecing together what her life had been like recently. Some memories where blurry and hard to hold onto, others had a prickly and painful feel about them and they hurt to focus on. They were wiping her memory, and she'd had some kind of surgery.

She felt the stress rising in her body, closing her eyes again to try to quell the unhelpful emotion. If she could remember things at the moment, then their attempts must be failing. But what had they done to her body?

She'd heard them talking about a transplant or something. Perhaps they'd given her an extra pair of arms or something similar. That had been a childhood fantasy, because two hands were often not enough.

She couldn't see anything obviously different. The skin at her elbow was sore, and she guessed there had been an IV there for a while. She got more and more worried about what they had done, because they had definitely done something and she might as well find out about it now, until her emotions reached some kind of threshold and her skin began to glow.

She screamed, cutting herself off with a hand over her mouth as soon as she remembered it was bad to attract attention.

Her skin, all of it that she could see, was emitting purple light, intensifying from lilac to royal purple as she grew more panicked, staring at the arms she held out before her in horror.

"Je suis un monstre," she choked out.

"Not yet," came the despised voice of her tormentor from the open doorway. "Now, you can begin training."

The proud expression on his face grew into one of keen interest as it shifted to be cast in red as rage became the dominant force in her small body.

He had succeeded in turning her into a freak, but it was worth little if she could not be controlled.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hydra Base, USSR  
2** **nd** **August, 1989**

"Temperature stabilised. She's under, sir," the young technician said.

"Very good," Ivan replied, though he sighed as he gazed at her petite silhouette through the fogged up glass. "The Little One is ready for whenever we need her, and though I long to see her serve her purpose, today is not the day. Wake up the Asset, I'm told he has work to do."

 **Hydra Base, USSR  
17** **th** **December, 1989**

"Wake them both up."

"Sir?"

"The Asset and the Little One. They're both required."

"Yes, sir."

Two cryogenic pods opened, leaving both occupants staring blankly forward as their bodies returned to normal functioning.

"Follow me."

They were left side by side to wait in a plain room off the major corridor. There were a table and a few chairs. All brushed steel.

The Asset's hulking frame made the Little One look doll-like by comparison. She stood at chest height, long dark hair braided down her back, her pretty features held in a vacant smile, her wide brown eyes fixed on the blank wall, free of any real emotion or thought. Hands clasped loosely behind her back, she waited for instruction.

He stood at the ready, arms by sides and feet planted. When he entered the room, his eyes combed it for hiding places, potential attacks, objectives. Finding nothing, he gave the woman a long look. She did not attack and he had no instructions, so he let her be. He stared coldly straight ahead.

Angelico Campano swaggered into the room, his formal shoes clanging against the gangway, then making muted taps on the linoleum floor. His tailored designer suit swished gently as he walked, and his breath was loud and whistled through his nose on the way in. He made more noise than the other occupants in the room put together.

They watched him, waiting.

"There is a man in London. Steven Clarkson. He has information I need, but if anyone knows that I have it, then it's worthless. Understand? So what I need you, Little One, to do, is get him away from his body guards. Charm him, smooth talk, until he's willing to go somewhere private. Then our friend here can help you get it out of him. Once you got it, you set up a little accident and you get out of there. No one can know you were ever there. Got it? Here's what I need," he concluded, dropping a folder on the table before strutting out of the room.

Both agents stepped forward to read through the information they would need.

 **l l l  
**

Her hair bounced and flowed as she moved, the deep chocolate colour contrasting with the white blouse tucked into the tiny red skirt she wore. Her matching red heels added a few inches, but she was still probably the shortest person in the club. She strolled along the bar, swaying her hips as she walked.

She allowed the slightest amount of light glow out through her skin. Not enough to be consciously noticeable, but enough to naturally draw the eye. Her lips, painted ruby red, pursed to the side as she looked around, looking lost. She spotted the target and ambled toward him.

Leaning strategically against the bar to afford him a view of the length of her body, she pretended to try to catch the bar tender's attention, waving when he looked away.

The mark stood up and sidled over, tailed by one of his two bodyguards. "Hey there, gorgeous. Why don't you let me help you out with that?" he offered.

She looked down as though shy. "Thank you," she replied, batting her eyelashes up at him.

He grinned back, ordering them both a round of whiskey.

She spend the next hour laughing when his voiced hitched because he was making a joke, tipping out drinks when nobody would see, and building up his certainty that she liked him. It was tedious but his ego greased the wheels.

His speech was slurred when he offered to show her the penthouse suite of the hotel in the adjacent building, she accepted with a giggle and confirmation to the Asset through a Morse code transmitter on her bracelet.

The bodyguards saw them to the room, but didn't follow when he opened the door and stumbled in. She followed and closed the door behind her, striding to the furthest part of the suite from the door and opening a window.

He chased after her on unsteady legs, reaching for her, but she stepped back.

"Солдат?" she called, her voice strong but low. The confidence in her voice confused Clarkson, who had grown used to the girl flirting bashfully in adorably French-accented English.

"What's that, baby-doll?" he burped, reaching for her again.

The Asset swung in through the window at that point, gracefully tackling the chubby man to the ground.

"What is the override code to the X439KK program?" he asked without emotion.

The man in the white suit struggled to break free. The Asset squeezed his throat until his face was bright red, before relenting.

"What is the override code to the X439KK program?"

He struggled again, but the Asset held his mouth shut and broke his arm without flinching.

"What is the override code to the X439KK program?"

The fifth time the question was asked, the target offered the answer desperately. The Asset threw him out the window, before climbing back up to the roof, carrying the Little One.

From there they took the stairs to the basement, left through the back door of the hotel, getting into a plain grey car that waited to take them back toward the base.

Their first mission together was accomplished without event.

 **Singwei City, South-East Asian Republic of Raobo  
3** **rd** **February, 1990**

 _There are ten targets. You have less than an hour window before they get to the ceremony. Neutralise the convoy before there are witnesses. The goal is to destabilise, and uncertainty is useful._

They perched up on a rooftop, the sun beating down on everything within its reach. Reality itself seemed to warp from the heat where it hit the concrete. The air was humid, as expected from the tropics, but the sky was clear of rainclouds. There would be no interference there.

They crouched side by side, waiting for the car bearing the ambassador and his entourage to meet with local dignitaries to come into sight. They did not know why this meeting was important, or what country the men represented, but they did not need to.

The Asset tilted his head, listening. A moment later, she heard it too. The thrum of engines approaching.

The three black cars moved at a leisurely pace, rolling down the road in a line. They screeched to a stop when the Asset threw himself off the ledge and slammed down onto the engine of the first car. He rolled to his feet, shooting the driver and front passenger through the windscreen before he hit the asphalt.

The Little One straightened a little, watching the scene below. He killed the third occupant of the first car and moved onto the next, but time enough had passed for the others to realise that there was danger.

She reached out her hand to help direct her power, carefully twisting the bright sunlight away from the cars. Both vehicles were shrouded in a darkness so complete that nothing could be seen of them, and its passengers could see nothing.

Cries of confusion and dismay reached her ears. The constant slight smile on her face melted off, but she was impassive. The patches of shadow shrank, as she allowed light to move as it wished onto the lower half of the cars. The Asset opened one of the doors, unloading a round of bullets into the cabin. She completely lifted the shroud on the second car for confirmation. Four more dead.

The final three men had decided to attempt to flee on foot, blindly scrabbling to get out of the car and run away from the sounds of gunfire. The Asset raised his arm to fire, and all three fell within feet of the car.

Movement on the corner caught her eye. A middle-aged man walking towards the scene. She quickly shot a bolt of brilliant light at him, enough to temporarily blind him. He cried out in pain and covered his eyes. He had seen nothing.

She dropped onto a terrace on the upper story and then the ground.

"Солдат?" she prompted quietly, her lips tipping back up into the empty-eyed smile she normally wore.

He kicked the last body over, and apparently satisfied they were all dead, gave her a nod. He walked back to the alley, retracing their steps to the pick-up point.

The air he stirred up as he moved smelt of gunpowder, leaking fuel which would likely explode soon, and sweat that had gathered as they waited for an hour as the sun raised the temperature of his black leather clothing to almost unbearable heights, though he made no move to remove any of it.

The Little One followed silently, her boots making almost no sound as she glided over the pavement. She wore a black suit in the more breathable material used for his pants, loosely cut for kicking and running but fitted up top. Her arms were what she used to focus her ability, and she could have nothing interfering with their delicate movements.

They jogged through alleys and climbed over roofs, she tucked under his arm when the most efficient path involved some feat a normal person could not achieve. She shrouded them in shadow, knowing that brighter light drew the eye.

They stood silently side by side as they waited for the car to pick them up, against a wall and mostly out of sight should someone pass through the quiet industrial area. She pulled the natural shadow in around them, soft fingers of darkness draining them of their features and colour.

The nondescript car came, and they got in. They were on their way out of the city when news broke of the brutal assassination of the entire diplomatic convoy come to broker peace with their small but fierce neighbour.

 **Milan, Italy  
16** **th** **May, 1990**

"And who's this pretty young thing?"

The grating sound of an American accent carried out over the party. The circle of guests around him turned to see the woman approaching. Petite, long dark hair braided away from her face, a floral dress swishing around her legs as she approached them.

"Sandrine," she said sweetly, offering a slender hand to him.

He brought it up to his lips, looking her in the eye as he placed a wet kiss on the back of it. Ian Wingfoot was the kind of man whose only charm of any note was his considerable inheritance. Rude, unattractive and capricious, he was not often approached by beautiful women apart from wily escorts. 'Sandrine' had the added appeal of being even shorter than him, and noticeably so.

He licked his lips as his eyes raked the gentle curves hinted to by the dress.

"Wingfoot. Ian Wingfoot," he replied with an attempt at a suave smile.

"A pleasure, Mr Wingfoot," she smiled, her speech smoothed by a rich accent like molasses. "I was hoping I would run into you here. Would you be so kind as to take a walk with me in the garden?"

Without a glance spared for the people he'd been talking to before her, he pushed past them to follow her off the tiled patio and into the lush garden.

She led him beyond tall bushes and evocative statues, stopping once they could no longer see the other party goers and the chatter was mostly drowned out by the rustling of leaves in the warm breeze.

Her face when she turned around had lost its flirtatious veneer, a small smile in its stead.

"I'm here with a message," she began, tone civil but bland.

He scowled. "God, are you serious?" he whined. "I'm on holiday. I was getting somewhere with that blonde, you know. You can't just barge in here and demand my time. I'm a busy guy, you should be dealing with my secretary."

"We did you a service, and you were warned there would come a time when you would be required to reciprocate. That time has come," she continued as though he hadn't spoken.

"And who's we?" he fumed.

"Hydra."

He balked a little, but puffed himself back up. "Well, they're going to have to send someone other than a little bitch like you," he sneered, coming closer to lean over her threateningly. "Things are finally going my way for once, and I'm done with Hydra, I don't need your help anymore. So you better run back wherever you came from and leave me alone."

She leant away from him, but the eerie smile on her face didn't change. "If you'd prefer," she said evenly. "Солдат?"

There was a rustle from the oak tree over them, before a man clad in black leather dropped heavily behind her. He had so many weapons strapped to his body he like a walking armoury. The skin around his eyes and his forehead was the only part of him that was exposed, and much of that was smeared with a black war-paint.

Ian stumbled back in shock, eyes blowing wide in fear. The tall figure stepped forward, pulling a serious-looking gun from a holster on his thigh and pressing it to the shorter man's forehead, gleaming arm out straight.

"By midnight, we require a way into the Pentagon's security system," she said, smiling a little wider.

He was shaking, making the gun to his head shake annoyingly. The Asset pressed harder, and he looked like he was about to wet himself. "That's impossible!" he eked out in a trembling voice.

"Your father's company were involved in the design and implementation of the system, and help maintain it. Find a way. A three-man team need to be able to get in and out without arousing suspicion," she instructed. "We will be at your hotel room at midnight. If you run or tell anyone, we will find you and kill you."

With that, she stepped aside, and the weapon was lowered.

Ian stared at them in horror, before running back towards the party as quickly as his remarkable lack of fitness allowed.

As one, the two of them ghosted away, through the garden and over the wall, disappearing into the exclusive neighbourhood.

 **l l l**

Wingfoot paced the plush lounge area of his room anxiously, regretting ever getting involved with these people, cursing his luck for being approached by them, and praying that the world wouldn't deal him another unfair hand and have people find out about this. He was not going to jail for this.

He wondered if the woman or the man would come, hoping it was just her and that she wouldn't have a gun. He believed he could overpower her, since she was a woman and a small one at that, but he had no doubt that the man would come back if he tried anything.

There was a sound at the door. Not a knock, but the sound of fiddling with the handle. It swung open, and she walked daintily into the room. She was wearing a dark jumpsuit rather than the dress from before, but he was too upset to ogle her at that moment.

She didn't say anything, just looked at him expectantly.

He picked up a notepad from the coffee table and handed it to her. "Those codes should open any door in the place for the next two and a half months. After that, they'll be randomly reset, like they are every three months. Each zone has a different passcode, and you have to use the right one. Those are blank key-cards. They will work, but if somebody scans them or looks at the log, it won't have an identity linked to it," he explained nervously. He never paid much attention to rules and regulations, but even he was sure this was very illegal.

She looked over what he had written, taking out the cards from where they were tucked into the pad. Satisfied, she nodded, pinning him with her creepily blank smile, and left. The terrifying man stood in the doorway, but let her pass when she reached him.

He levelled the most chilling look Ian had ever seen at him, then followed her away from the room.

Ian sagged onto the couch, panting from all the stress. After a few minutes, he asked the concierge to send up a bottle of port and a discreet call girl from the area. He deserved the reward.

 **Hydra Base, Ukraine  
2** **nd** **September, 1991**

"This operation calls for stealth, I want the Winter Soldier on this. He never fails!" Dreskall argued, moustache quivering as he slammed a fist on the table.

Matins rolled his eyes. "Stealth. Yes, but not the kind that he is trained for. We need someone to blend in in a crowd. The Little One is far more adept," he pressed.

"Well, we could send both. We have before, and they've done very well together," Chang suggested, butting out his cigarette.

Matins was shaking his head before he finished talking. "If we send the Asset in, it will cause panic before he can get to the target. If we only wanted him dead, sniping from a distance would be fine. No one is going to let the soldier get near their leader without a fight. One look at him and he'll have to fight his way through. It's too messy," he insisted.

"Have you seen her? The Little One is a good name, she's ridiculous! If we only wanted to steal the key I can see why you'd want her, but she's no assassin," Dreskall countered, face bright red.

Chang sighed and stood from the table. "They're both out of cryo right now, why don't we take a look?" he suggested, leading the other men out of the room. "She's not great at combat, I'll grant you, but it's not that hard to kill one elderly man with no defences."

They entered the training room, standing on the galley and looking down over the floor. The cavernous room echoed with grunts and cries as the Asset sparred with several agents, fending off three at a time and still looking like he was winning.

Some distance away, the Little One sat on the cold, hard floor, grinning as she waved her hands to manipulate a little light show in front of her. It coalesced into a plain cube, then gained detail to become a small wooden box, the kind that held antique pistols.

A passing guard walked right through the mirage.

"Yes, she could probably kill him. But she has to get away with it," Dreskall muttered.

"We've been training her to do better in combat. Perhaps a demonstration," Matins offered.

By then, the Winter Soldier had defeated all three of the other agents, and the next set were preparing to take him on.

"Wait," he called out. "Little One, why don't you fight the Asset?"

Her attention jerked up to the elevated platform, the illusion she wove blinking out of existence once her focus was broken. She walked fluidly to stand opposite him, the other soldiers backing away out of the fighting area designated by a painted rectangle on the floor.

They stared at each other blankly, apparently both waiting for the other to make to first move. The air was tense and still as everyone watched with rapt attention.

He moved first, striding towards her with murderous focus. She threw up a hand and with a swiping motion, his head disappeared, leaving behind a void so dark it was hard to look at. She was stopping all light from reaching his eyes, but he continued his approach blind.

She slipped to the side, moving out of his path, but he corrected it, coming for her again. She sneaked behind him carefully, and he stopped moving, poised to strike. Listening, most likely, for a sound to tell him where she was.

Retreating several metres, she spun a second image of herself next to where she stood, and then released the shadow from his head. He whirled suspiciously until he spotted her. Both of her.

When he advanced again, it was more cautious, and he halted when she blinded him again. She crept to the side, creating a handful of duplicates around the space. When she returned his sight, he looked frustrated, jaw and fists clenched. He took a more aggressive approach, swiping a hand through each of the mirages.

She realised this tactic was failing, and one by one they disappeared, until he was the only figure left in the little arena.

Dreskall let out a harrumph that sounded grudgingly impressed.

An odd-looking patch of air, like a column of heat distortion but different, approached him from behind. She dropped the camouflage as she sprang at him, but he was faster, whipping around to catch her by the throat with his metal arm. He pulled her slight frame against his body, holding her off the ground with her arms by her sides, hand against her neck holding her still but not restricting her breathing.

She struggled, but was no match for his strength. Her skin began to emit a dull glow as she tried to wiggle free.

"That's enough," Chang called. "As you were."

He placed her back on the ground lightly, turning away without a word. The waiting soldiers took up defensive stances around him, and she walked back across the room to practice turning things invisible. It was difficult to maintain, because it was a balancing act to project what was on the other side so that it would look right.

As the three men filed out, Chang noticed that she was still glowing slightly.

 **Bali, Indonesia  
6** **th** **September, 1991**

Though night was falling, it was still hot. Tourists milled about the colourful streets in shorts and bikinis, music drifting out of restaurants and bars and she pushed through the crowds. Some people were already drunk, but the mood was light and relaxed. No one troubled her but a few street vendors trying to attract her attention.

The nicest restaurant in the area was her target, and she sneaked past the staff at the front with ease. Joining the crowd of journalists and supporters, she slowly nudged her way towards the front, where the mark was giving a brief speech to the cameras.

"It's a pleasure to be here, and I'd like to thank the Indonesian President and people for making me so welcome. The agreement between our countries should help make…" he said proudly.

There were shouts of surprise and dismay, even a few screams when the power abruptly cut out. Or so it seemed. In reality, the Little One had plunged the whole room into absolute darkness, leaving the light above her head a small column to shine down. Nothing could be seen, except for her and her target as they stared at one another while the restaurant bristled in annoyance at the darkness. Acting quickly before he could say anything, she leapt forward and slashed his throat with the knife from her purse. She ducked below the majority of the blood spray, and the woman behind her screamed and swore in shock, not knowing what hit her.

With a strangled noise, he began to fall. She grabbed him by the lapels, searching his pockets for the key. She snatched it and stowed it in her purse, preparing to make her escape when something bit into her side. She fell back, and darkness melted away, lights cheerily glowing unobstructed.

A cheer went up, but quickly turned to screams and panic as the scene in the middle of the room was revealed. The visiting Prime Minister sprawled in a pool of his own blood, and a young woman also crumpled on the floor, bloody hands pressed to her side.

Police and ambulances were called, patrons and staff doing their best to handle the situation until they arrived. The Little One was careful to cover her face with her hair as she was loaded into an ambulance and given first aid.

As soon as they arrived at the hospital, she tossed a bright beam of light, disorientating them enough for her to burst out of the back of the van and stagger around the side of the building. She fell against the wall, camouflaging herself against the brickwork and lawn of the little tropical garden.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled out her phone. "Plan compromised. I need to be picked up from the south side of the hospital."

 **Hydra Base, Ukraine  
7** **th** **September, 1991**

The Asset had served his purpose, a training exercise for the normal soldiers, and was being walked back to cryogenisis when a flurry of activity from the entrance to the wing of the building made him and his escorts turn.

Some of high-ranking members of the organisation were celebrating something, passing a small object between them. Two soldiers came into view, carrying a small body between them. The one holding the legs moved sideways, allowing him a view of the lolling head.

It was the woman, the Little One.

He froze, tensed. She was dead or unconscious… Not dead, he could hear her breathing shallowly. She seemed to have an abdominal wound, which was bleeding through its dressing.

He followed them as they passed, ignoring whatever the men he had been walking with said. They put her down roughly on the table in the medical room, and left.

He skulked in the corner as the doctor looked her over, sewed up the wound and injected her arm with something. He watched him leave, then approached her.

He stared. He felt he should be doing something, thinking something, but didn't know what. He just scowled until enough people came to drag him back to the chair.

 **Dorijishu, Japan  
28** **th** **June, 1995**

The Japanese branch of a Finnish crime syndicate, Golden Rowan, had reneged on an agreement.

To charm or outgun some of the most ruthless people in the world, it was an obvious choice of who to send.

The Little One walked up to the cabin they were using as their 'secret' safe house, and knocked on the door. There was hissing in Japanese behind the door, before it opened slowly, revealing several men and two women.

"Bonsoir. Je suis une représentative d'Hydra," she greeted.

Someone other than the man in the front said something in Japanese in an annoyed tone. He switched to English. "Is that French? Are you crazy, woman?" he burst out incredulously.

"I don't speak Japanese," she answered simply in English.

"Whatever. What do you want?" he demanded.

"I'm here as a representative of Hydra," she stated. A gun was pointed in her face and cocked in a second.

Before she could go any further, she was yanked to the side and the Asset stood in her place. Him they recognised immediately, and there were a few expletives uttered in a number of languages, before the gunfire started up.

He shot three of them before they could react. Blocking bullets with his metal arm, he kicked the weapon out of one of the women's hands and struck her in the face. He swept the legs out from underneath the man behind her, and threw the remaining man through a back window.

The Little One stood from her place flat on the deck, cautiously edging into the room. Some were likely dead, others unconscious. She cocked her head at the Asset. She had not had the opportunity to discuss mending the breach before he stepped in. She had not given him a signal to intercede.

He scrutinised the bodies on the floor, and the one hanging out the window, rather than look at her. She did not understand his decision, but did not need to.

She searched the cabin, and found what they came for in a briefcase hidden under the couch. They left.

This was to be the last mission on which they collaborated before the fall of Hydra in 2014.


	4. Chapter 4

**Abandoned Hydra Base, Ukraine  
3rd September, 2016**

An eerie quiet blanketed the base. A back-up generator somewhere hummed quietly, and somewhere unseen a mouse squeaked as it scampered away.

" _Васіли!_ " Yuri hissed. "We should not be here. This isn't just some maintenance tunnel, it looks serious."

Vasil snorted. "If it's so serious, they should have put a better door on it. Come on, there's nobody here, and we're not going to find a better place to set up camp. Do you _want_ to spend another night freezing cold?" he asked as he continued further into the underground series of corridors, waving his torch to and fro. It looked like some kind of military base, rather than a power station or something as they had expected when they happened upon the hidden entrance.

Yuri hurried to catch up. "Are you sure? I can hear a machine or something," he worried.

His companion rolled his eyes. "It must be keeping the basic power running. Lucky. Maybe we can charge our phones," he shrugged.

They wandered into a large room, squeezing through a pair of double blast doors that had been left partly open.

Papers and broken glass littered the floor, untouched after whatever chaos had driven away the people who had worked and lived here had passed through. Strange machinery was dotted around the room. Vasil was drawn to a blue cylinder about 2 metres tall, on a platform, emitting the only light in the room apart from backlit buttons on the machines and the two men's torches.

"What is this place?" he breathed, bringing a hand up to touch the glass but flinching back from the intense cold of the surface. He wandered around the tube, then the one beside it that lacked the glass front piece and was dark. It looked like an odd shower stall.

Yuri was reluctant to enter the room, loitering near the entrance. He stooped to pick up a piece of paper that nearly made him slip over.

"19 Апрель 1997," he read quietly to himself. "The Little One continues to become more disobedient. Electro sessions in the chair make behaviour more erratic. Contact with the Asset increases aggression, and incites reciprocal agitation. Remove from service and postpone pending experimentation until solution can be found."

He frowned, unsettled but confused by the typed letter. Letting it slip back to the ground, he brushed at the dust it left on his fingers.

"Vasil, let's go. We can camp near the entrance. Who knows, maybe this place was abandoned because it's structurally unsound. Vasil, what are you doing?" he pleaded.

The taller man was fiddling with the spookily lit refrigerator, stooping to regard a control panel. There were several symbols in lieu of instructions, so with a shrug, he just started pushing them.

"What are you doing?" Yuri cried again. "Don't touch that, you don't know what it does!"

"It probably doesn't even work anymore, calm down. And if I break it, so what? Who's going to sue us?" he laughed, prodding at the buttons again.

Yuri stormed over, grabbing his arm. "I'm serious. Please, let's just go," he said with uncharacteristic force.

Vasil's expression softened as he saw the genuine fear in his friend's face. "Fine, although you need to lighten up," he agreed.

The blonde's reply was forestalled by a pneumatic hiss from the mysterious contraption. Both men stumbled back as the glass slid upward with a mechanical clunking. Vasil cheered as mist poured out, but broke off with a curse as it cleared.

Standing inside the little chamber was a small-statured woman. They clutched at each other as they stared in shock.

"Is that a dead body?" Yuri whispered shakily.

Her eyes flew open and she rolled her shoulders, stepping out of the machine. She quickly scanned the room, eyes quickly landing on them. Vasil had fallen back in terrified surprise and pulled Yuri with him. They gaped up at her from their spot sprawled on the dusty floor.

"Заказы?" she asked bluntly.

"Orders? What orders?" Vasil queried weakly.

Confusion flickered across her face, vanishing a moment later as it melted back to a totally blank state, lit by the shaking torch beam from Yuri's hand. Vasil's had rolled away when he fell, and lay a few feet away, illuminating black combat boots and loose trousers that might have been cargo pants.

She turned to look over the rest of the room, but it was hard to see much of anything, she raised an arm in a lifting sort of motion, and was awash with white light. Her body, too, began to glow, without any actual lights coming on.

She seemed to think for a while, and then stalked off without a word, the room fading back into darkness. She maintained her almost heavenly glow, but her black attire and frightening stare was at odd with her divine beauty. Once her illuminated figure slipped through the doors, Vasil scrambled to snatch his lamp.

"Let's get out of here," he said urgently.

Yuri got to his feet but hesitated. "What if she needs help?" he said uncertainly.

"Are you kidding?" he hissed incredulously. "That thing is some kind of alien and for all we know the reason there is no one else left alive in this place."

"Maybe she was some kind of prisoner? I doubt she locked herself in there," he countered thoughtfully.

"For God's sake, Yuri, let's leave before it comes back. It didn't seem like it needed help, did it? Let's just _go_ ," he insisted, tugging him by the sleeve.

He allowed himself to be towed along. Vasil was right, there was something very wrong going on here and that woman looked like she was a part of it.

They sprinted out of the compound and tripped down the mountain as fast as they could, pushing on for hours before setting up camp by a roadside, hidden by a few rocks and a spindly tree. As far as they could tell, the alien or prisoner didn't care enough to follow them. There was no evidence she had even been real, but there was no way either of them would be forgetting that experience any time soon.


	5. Chapter 5

**New York City, USA  
1** **st** **November, 2016**

Bucky was uneasy as they walked along the crowded street, cap pulled down over his eyes and the Wakanda-repaired arm shoved deep in his jacket pocket. Steve strode comfortably beside him in an almost irritatingly care-free way. He kept throwing concerned looks at his tense friend though, which just annoyed him.

"I was all over the news, Steve. Don't give me that look," he grumbled.

"Zemo was found guilty. Anyone who reads the news knows you weren't responsible for all that," he protested.

Bucky threw him a sour look. "If I had done it, it wouldn't be the worst thing I've done," he said.

Steve met his gaze, mouth and brow set stubbornly. He drew breath to argue, but was interrupted.

A girl walking in the opposite direction, in a warm-looking grey coat and a beanie crashed into him, the swing of his broad shoulders generating enough momentum to nearly send her small body flying. They grabbed onto one another to keep her from falling, though, and profuse apologies began to flow from his lips immediately.

She laughed and smiled shyly, apologising and stepping away from him. He scanned her for damage, but she seemed fine. With an awkward wave, she kept walking, quickly disappearing into the bustling afternoon crowd.

Steve glanced to the side before he continued walking, freezing mid-step when he saw Bucky's face.

"What is it?" he asked worriedly.

He looked like he'd seen a ghost, staring at the place the young woman had been. His eyes were wild as he frantically tried to place her. "I knew her," he forced out.

"…Well, maybe you saw her in DC? Or maybe she was in Europe recently?" Steve suggested hopefully.

He shook his head rapidly. "No, I didn't just recognise her… I know her," he protested.

They both looked out over the crowd, but she was long gone. Even if she hadn't been, she would have been well hidden amongst the throngs of people much taller than her.

"Okay, let's head back. Groceries can wait," Steve decided. He guided Bucky back to their motel with a hand on his back.

 **l l l**

Bucky hadn't said a word in over an hour. He just sat on his bed in their shared room, staring at the carpet without really seeing it, sorting through his jumbled and rewritten memories to piece together the identity of the stranger.

Steve sat on the couch, half-watching some banal sit-com from the 90s while waiting for Bucky to do something.

"She was French," he croaked from the bed suddenly. The TV was instantly muted and he had Steve's undivided attention.

"I was sent to look for her more than once. Eventually they sent me to the right place, somewhere in France. I watched her then, then I took her. She was there after that…" he trailed off with a frown. "They did something to her. They kept her with me, in the ice. They made her do things, sometimes with me, sometimes alone."

"You mean there's another Winter Soldier?" Steve asked, trying and failing to keep the rising tension out of his voice.

Bucky finally looked at him and shook his head. He seemed less agitated now that he had locked down what he had struggled to remember. "No. She couldn't fight very well. She did some kind of magic, though, but what she was really good at was… talking to people. She could make anyone do almost anything," he tried to explain.

"Magic? She can control people?" Steve repeated flatly.

Bucky huffed, his demeanour lightening gradually. "I don't know Steve. It seemed like magic to me. She somehow… controls light or something. She can make it too dark or too bright to see, and make it look like things that aren't there are real. But she can't really control people. She's just good at persuading them," he shrugged, adding drily, "No one ever really explained it to me."

"Any idea what she'd be doing here?" Steve asked, not really expecting an answer.

"None. I think… they lost control of her. They stopped sending her to help me, and eventually even thawing her out for training or experiments. I don't know where she's been for years," Bucky answered with a helpless shrug.

Steve nodded. "But she might be a threat," he said seriously.

Bucky looked unhappy, but didn't answer.

 **l l l**

The following morning, Steve made a few calls, warnings that there may be trouble on the horizon. Sam, Natasha, local police as a courtesy. There was little else they could do without any fresh intelligence.

So they watched, and they waited. When the woman didn't reappear, they relaxed back into their routine. Living out of their modest rented room, since their homes in New York were long gone but the familiar city was better than anywhere else.

The brainwashing instilled in Bucky's head had been largely rooted out, but it had left scars that would take time and effort to heal. Steve took him shopping and showed him some of the technology developed over the years that wasn't murder related, meaning it was unfamiliar. Admittedly, he wasn't the best qualified teacher, but they worked it out.

Overall, things seemed to be improving.

 **New York City, USA  
12** **th** **November, 2016**

Bucky had grown more confident. He'd been able to fend for himself in Romania, but the events earlier in the year had set him back a little. Now, however, he wasn't just surviving, he was being more open, even trying to find a new normal.

One of the conveniences of living in a large city was that it was never too late for a supply run. He walked through the brisk night air, aware of his surroundings but not paranoid as he headed for the nearest supermarket.

Until he heard an empty bottle fall and roll in the street behind him.

He was instantly on alert. He cast a look over his shoulder in the direction of the noise, but there was no one to be seen. He kept walking, listening carefully for sounds of pursuit. His muscles were tensed, ready for a fight.

A small figure materialised on the footpath in front of him, several metres away, seemingly out of nowhere. He tensed, ready for a fight, regretting only having concealed a few weapons on his person in case it came to that.

"Солдат."

The word carried across the space between them easily in the still air, simple and quiet, knocking the air right out of him. The need to defend, protect, fight, succeed crashed into him like a wave trying to pull a child under the wild ocean. Years of leaping into the fray at that command in the smooth, feminine voice drove him to do the same now, but the action required was unclear.

The full spectrum of emotion roiled in his gut as they silently stood facing one another. He often got the order of things jumbled, but he thought that maybe the last time she had called him that, the last time they had been thawed at the same time, had been as she was marched toward the laboratory and he to the chair. He had been gone for a long time, many days, and needed to go back in the chair. When she saw him, she called out with more emotion than they were meant to have, fighting tooth and claw to tear the scientists away from him. He remembered his confusion, her unprofessional desperation, and that she didn't seem to think to use any of her unusual talents. She was fairly easily overcome.

He remembered soft greetings only she thought to give. He remembered her watching over him when she was the fragile one. Thousands of details he couldn't understand at the time flashed through his battered mind, and he struggled to understand many of them now.

He knew, though, that she had been the closest thing to a comrade he had had, and he wanted to help her.

They did nothing for a very long time. Eventually he gathered his thoughts enough to speak.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in Russian, starting with the obvious, the easiest.

"I have orders," she replied simply. She wore the same blank smile she always had, except flickers of conflicting emotions ran through her eyes.

His stomach sank. "From who?" he asked cautiously. He had no idea where she had been all this time, or who was controlling her now. There was supposed to be no one left to give orders.

"I was sent to watch," she said instead.

"Watch me?"

"Watch Steven Rogers," she corrected. "The orders have changed. I am to eliminate him."

He went cold. It wasn't easy to assassinate Steve, he would know, but knowing she was going to try felt like swallowing a block of ice.

"Why?" he exhaled without really meaning to.

She blinked at the question, then frowned, looking uneasy. Her skin started to glow a faint purple, which didn't surprise him as much as it should have. She shook her head as though to clear it, and her face went smooth again. The purple tint faded, and then the light itself. She stared him down, which made him want to press further.

"Why are you telling me?" he asked gently, taking a few slow steps toward her.

She looked distressed, and the purple light flared back up, shining out of her exposed skin and leaking out of her black combat gear. She cast her eyes about anxiously, as though the concrete beneath her feet could help clarify the scattered thoughts dancing about the edges of her mind.

She seemed to register his approach all of a sudden, lurching away from him into a defensive stance. Before he could say anything else, she turned and ran.

He sprinted after her, but she quickly concealed herself with a flowery hand movement that rendered her body a strange looking patch of air. Despite his serum-improved vision, he lost her in the poorly lit backstreets.

He double-timed it back to the motel to warn Steve.

He supposed he ought to see this as good news; unless whoever made her hunt Steve also made her warn them, she seemed to be breaking out of the mind control. Looking back, he thought that maybe it had been happening before, and apparently nobody had worked out a solution.


	6. Chapter 6

**New York City, USA  
14** **th** **November, 2016**

Natasha Romanoff was very good. She had told them she was in Europe, and when they asked if she could keep an eye out for any information pertaining to the Little One, she had agreed. But she had done one better. Visiting the wreckage of a partially destroyed Hydra compound in Sweden, she had managed to boot and hack a computer.

The small base had been mostly an outpost and training ground, but over a period of several months in the nineties had corresponded with a base somewhere in the eastern half of Ukraine. During that period, the key words she had searched for were far more frequent, so she had resolved to send them almost everything within that window.

She had emailed anything she thought might be useful for them to sift through. They were grateful, if a little put out at having to wade through all the drivel.

That afternoon found them in the room, Bucky resignedly skimming through archaic emails in Russian, as the majority of the content was in the language the Steve couldn't read. Meanwhile, he dutifully translated rosters and stocktake documents from Swedish with a hefty bilingual dictionary.

They had bought a printer to run off hard copies of the hundreds of pages they had to read. It was easier this way to divide and manage the work, not to mention neither of them were particularly strong with the laptop. Steve sat at the small table, notes, pens and paper laid out carefully while his friend sprawled on the floor, lying on his stomach surrounded by haphazard stacks of paper.

A knock on the door made them snap their heads up to share a look. The both stealthily approached the door, Bucky with a knife in hand and gun tucked into his waistband.

Whoever it was pounded on the door several times, before starting on the yelling.

"Open up, coward! I know you're in there, you prick! You should have stayed away from her, and now I'm going to make you! Open! This! Door!" a man bellowed, degenerating to the point of kicking the door with each word.

The men inside shared a look of confusion. Neither had expected this kind of aggression; if someone came looking for them with an axe to grind, it was bound to be someone with a little more training than this.

Neither knew who 'she' was, either.

With a half-shrug, Steve pulled open the door between kicks. "Hey, I think you have the wrong room. You need to calm down, buddy," he said firmly.

The guy on the other side of the door was, for a normal person, tall and heavyset. He seemed more than ready for a fight, though he blanched a little when he saw Steve. He drew himself up, though, pushing unclean-looking blond hair back from his forehead.

"Don't think so, Pauline told me where to find you. She told me what you did to her, and there's no way I'm letting you get away with it, arsehole," he threatened, leaning in menacingly despite the fact he had to tilt his head back slightly to meet Steve's eyes.

"Settle down, alright. I don't even know a Pauline," he ordered.

The man was too far gone, though. Declaring, "This is for you, girl!" he swung a punch at Steve's face. Bucky twitched, uneasy with just watching someone attack his best friend, but there would be no trouble winning this fight.

He calmly caught the fist in his palm, grasping it with his larger one in a vice-like grip. The attacker let out an angry noise, swinging an even sloppier punch toward his gut. Steve grabbed his wrist before he could make contact.

His arms were already crossed, and as he looked at the bigger man in insulted bemusement, Steve tugged them further apart to illicit a pitiful whine.

"I told you, I don't know a Pauline. I didn't do whatever you think I did. Either way, this isn't the way to solve it," he chastised him. His stern tone or serious expression seemed to finally get through to the man that Bucky mentally labelled 'a little crazy,' which was something coming from him.

Making sure to hold the knife out of sight, he stepped forward so as to be more visible from the doorway. "What does Pauline look like?" he asked suspiciously.

The guy jumped, looking more scared at the appearance of another large, muscular person against whom he would definitely not win in a fight. He probably looked a lot less friendly that Steve, too. It occurred to him belatedly that he should have put on a hoodie before coming to the door, since he wore only a t-shirt for staying in the room. The metal arm definitely added to his menacing potential.

"Cute, brown eyes, long wavy hair, always wears, like, sundresses," he shrugged a little fearfully.

Bucky's face flattened. Definitely the Little One. "And she asked you to come here? Fight someone for her?" he asked tightly.

He puffed up arrogantly. "She didn't ask me to. She's my girlfriend, and she told me about her dick of an ex who won't leave her alone. I made her tell me where to find him," he boasted.

"Recent girlfriend, right?" Steve asked, clearly knowing where this was headed.

"So?" he replied defensively.

Steve sighed, letting go of his wrists, which the obnoxious man rubbed discreetly. "Look, she made that stuff up. She kind of… a fugitive. If she tries to contact you again, try to stay away from her," he advised.

The guy inflated indignantly. "Of course she'll contact me. She said that we might be soulmates," he launched into a speech, but broke off when Bucky reached around Steve and slammed the door in his face.

Into the stunned silence from the corridor, Bucky called, "Now get lost. Pauline isn't real."

There were muffled protests for a while, but eventually he gave up and let them return to the stolen Hydra files in peace.

 **l l l**

Around about the time that they would normally start thinking about dinner, Bucky came across one of the messages between bases that had prompted Natasha to send it all.

 _30_ _th_ _March 1993_

 _Dr Zhvedolov,_

 _We have made unexpected headway with the regards to the barn owl graft trials. We have found a stable compound of the genes for insertion, and preliminary trials on blood samples are promising._

 _If you do not object, I mean to proceed with the procedure ahead of your plans for the wings. With due respect for your abilities, it seems that your efforts may not come to fruition for some time to come. It is an ambitious endeavour, but the major changes of the body it calls for will make it difficult to achieve. Let us hope that the treatment renders this great leap possible._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Dr Schiedenrach_

He frowned. The missive was vague, but felt promising. He leafed through for something else bearing either of the names.

 _31_ _st_ _March 1993_

 _Dr Schiedenrach,_

 _I have no objection to your going ahead with the grafting. The projected shift in blood vessel placement to allow the increased joint flexibility should present no complications to my experiments._

 _My work here may continue for another two months or so, and I ask that you send blood samples once the procedure is completed for me to continue with my research into the feasibility of using hawk genetics to stabilise the butterfly graft. Even the Little One will need something more heavy-duty than a standard insect._

 _Regards,_

 _Dr Zhvedolov_

Bucky stared at the letter. They were definitely discussing their experiments on her. He knew that they had made her a guinea pig, and he realised that that must have been how she could control light the way she did. He picked up next the letter.

 _5_ _th_ _April 1993_

 _Dr Zhvedolov,_

 _The subject has accepted the graft with no unusual difficulties. We have observed a discernible improvement in the flexibility of joints, most noticeably the neck. No side-effects yet apparent._

 _I have sent three vials of blood to help further your research during your absence. I am interested to know more of your progress and the viability of the hawk as a bridge to the butterfly._

 _Hail Hydra,_

 _Dr Schiedenrach_

He read through several more of the letters, feeling sick to his stomach. They went back and forth over the minute details of somehow splicing tiny pieces of animal DNA into the Little One, discussing the virtue of the Golden Eagle over an albatross for wing support and control and the Emerald Swallowtail butterfly for the wings themselves.

He hadn't seen any wings on her the other night, and had to assume that experiment had failed. Nevertheless, the lengths they were willing to go to were disgusting, as was their treatment of 'the subject' with no regard for her humanity or how she would feel about being slowly but quantifiably being made into something else. Their twisted view was no surprise to him, really, as he had been the victim of it for seventy years, but it wasn't pleasant to see their lack of qualms even in private correspondence. Presumably, the second doctor returned to the base as the letters ended suddenly.

Bucky hoped he had died from a painful illness.

Pushing up off the ground with a dramatic sigh, he turned to Steve.

"Let's go get dinner, I'm starving. Besides, if I keep going I think I'm going to find a mission report for a triple murder I committed, so I'd rather save that for later," he growled. He said it like a joke but he had a feeling a particularly gory mission had been around that time and he wasn't eager to relive it any more frequently than he already did.

Steve gave him a sad but supportive look, and stood to grab a jacket and his phone.

"Where do you want to eat?" he asked as he looked for a set of keys.

Bucky plucked them from the desk and threw them across the room. "That place with the huge pasta servings for like five bucks," he answered, managing to work up a little enthusiasm for his new favourite restaurant. Their pizza was good but their pasta was incredible.

Steve managed to catch the keys without really looking and they were out the door, trying to leave their worries behind for an hour or so as they walked through a neighbourhood not all that far from their home in the forties on a cool night while chatter from some of the trendy rooftop bars and outdoor seating areas floated around.

 **l l l**

They joked about old times as they walked home, their hearty laughter dying off as they noticed the small group of men loitering around the front of the motel.

They shared a look, before continuing their walk with a cautious but assertive gait.

When they got close, a man who seemed to be their leader stepped forward. They all wore baggy clothes, and Bucky could discern the shapes of several weapons poorly concealed beneath them.

"You shouldn't be surprised to see us," he said, oozing misplaced confidence, chin up as he spoke to them like a bad impression of the gangster he clearly aspired to be. He reminded Bucky of a boy he'd gone to school with, Arthur McSomething, a scrawny red-head with remnants of a Scottish accent. He'd been unpleasant and friendless for the first few years that he knew him, before managing to get in with a bad crowd and wanting everyone to know it. He'd tried to pick on Steve once but ended up out cold behind the school's dumpster. Since his gang had never taken it up with him, he'd doubted he mattered all that much to him.

He had never told anyone about that, he was pretty sure. He let Arthur keep up his leather jacketed illusion, and didn't bother telling Steve when he'd only be annoyed. Arthur was probably dead by now, which meant it was a secret, a memory that belonged only to him, living on in his mind alone. It felt good to have that kind of autonomy.

"And yet we are," Steve said, bringing Bucky's full attention back to the confrontation at hand.

The guy spread his arms wide. "You took our merchandise. Did you really think we wouldn't come looking for you?" he asked with mock surprise.

Bucky was getting tired of this guy, his tense, posturing flunkies and the whole situation. Why couldn't this generation just leave him alone?

"Look, we don't know you, we don't have whatever you lost, and I'm willing to bet a short, beautiful woman manipulated you into coming here, but you might as well go home. You're wasting your time," he griped.

The handful of men looked taken aback at his words and his annoyed demeanour, but recovered quickly.

"Veronica said you'd deny it," a guy in a backwards cap piped up from the back of the cluster.

"Well boys, we gave them a chance to be reasonable, didn't we?" the leader smirked, but he was obviously masking his nervousness. Unlike the two of them, none of them looked like they'd be much good in a fight. "Guess we're gonna have to do this the hard way."

Several went for their weapons at the same time. Steve was closer to the leader, so he let him take care of it. He lunged for the guy to the right, elbowing him in the face before he could free his unwieldy pistol from his waistband. He kicked the brawnier man beside him in the chest, relatively gently, sending him flying back only a few feet. He simply slapped the knife out of the next guy's hand, meeting his terrified gaze with an unimpressed expression. The last guy standing had managed to actually draw his dainty handgun, the kind dangerous women concealed in their handbags before he fell, and aim it at Bucky.

They made eye contact. He couldn't have been much older than twenty, and had that underdog look Bucky knew so well. After sticking up for Steve for so long, he really felt for anyone who'd had to face that kind of adversity, even though this kid clearly hadn't made the right choices. He looked scared, but determined.

There was no noise from behind, Steve clearly finished dispatching his half of the amateurish hit squad, watching the exchange from several paces back.

"Don't do it," Bucky murmured. It wasn't a threat, nor a plea. He wanted to give him the chance to do the right thing.

With a torn look on his face, he gave a regretful shake of his head, his left hand coming up to steady the gun. He looked like he might be sick. His eyes were glued to Bucky's steely blues as he fired at his chest.

A bad idea, really, given he was no marksman. But at this range, it was hard to miss.

It didn't really matter, anyway, as he brought his metal forearm up to deflect the bullet, then surged forward. The kid's eyes bugged out of his head. He didn't have time to lift the gun to fire again before the bionic hand closed around the gun, bending it out of shape so that it could no longer fire.

With that over, they were left in a somewhat awkward situation. Four of the crew lay unconscious or moaning on the floor, one lying down and pretending to be incapacitated, and three just standing there dazed.

He pulled the one with the mangled gun around by the collar so that he could face the rest of the scene without turning his back on an enemy. It would be pretty lucky if this guy managed to do damage to someone with his skill and super-soldier status, but Bucky was not inviting any more bad luck into his life.

"We don't have whatever it is that was stolen, we weren't the ones who took it. Most likely, it was the person you called Veronica," Steve said earnestly.

"Did she take any weapons?" Bucky cut in.

There was a general shaking of heads.

"We're going to let you clean this up," Steve said. "We're not going to call the police, but seriously, think about things. This could be your chance to turn your life around."

With that pearl of wisdom and serious look, they went inside, leaving the delinquents to get their friends home safely.

"She's not going to send people this easy to fend off forever," Steve said as they climbed the stairs.

"She has to realise manipulating random people into attacking us isn't going to work," Bucky agreed. "I don't know what she'll try instead. As far as I know, assassination's really not her thing. They usually sent me to do the dirty work and protect her."

"She needed protection?" Steve asked dubiously.

"She's good at talking, and sure she can blind anyone who tries to hurt her, but she can't heal like we do. She's weak. If someone was going to take a bullet, much easier if it were me," he shrugged.

Steve unlocked their door and they went inside, giving the suite a once over to check it was safe. Nothing seemed out of place, and they flopped down onto the couch.

"Buck… are you… I mean, how are you doing with all of this?" he asked gently.

"It's definitely weird. I didn't expect to see her again," he sighed. "She was… well, I don't think either of us were capable of making friends. But she was the only person who wasn't there to hurt me or order me around, and sometimes she was… nice. Like she had a little bit of herself still in there, and she wanted to protect me."

Steve nodded, patiently waiting for him to sort through his tangled thoughts. He'd seen Bucky pouring over his new journal, flipping through the pages to reread earlier pages, scribbling new thoughts along with old memories as he put things back together. He knew it still wasn't easy.

"I watched her for days, before I took her. Followed her, watched her wake up, get ready, go to work. Who she talked to and how. Everything she did. And she was… gentle. She was as soft and light as a person can be," he mused. "In a way, they could never really beat that out of her."

They stayed quiet for a while, both lost in thought.

Something fought its way to the surface, though, a memory filtered through the cold eyes of the Asset.

 _He was stationed on the roof of the building next to the one in which she worked. He watched her carefully through a pair of binoculars, his earpiece feeding him what the listening device he had planted overnight picked up._

 _She tossed her chocolate curls over her shoulder as she leant forward to point at something on the piece of paper in front of another woman in the office._

 _Through the general hubbub of the office, he heard her say, "It presents a strong case, whether or not they're willing to admit it. Negotiations can't change this, Charlotte."_

 _The seated woman cheered, and she laughed with her. Her laugh was different to the laughter he was used to, warmer. He cast that thought aside as the second woman spoke again._

 _"You're right, Halina. George was right to bring you in on this," she said._

 _The target smiled bashfully, nodding in thanks as she returned to her own desk. She twirled a pencil in the air as she thought, scribbling notes on whatever document she was working on. Sometimes she tapped it idly on the desk when she paused to search for the right word. It was loud, right near the microphone, drowning out everything else. The Asset didn't react, didn't move. He would wait until night fell, and then he would remove the bugs from the office. He had taken the ones from her house this morning._

 _Tonight was the extraction._

"Her name was Halina," he blurted. Steve jumped slightly at the sudden noise, before looking at him intently.

"What?" he asked in confusion.

"The Little One, the one trying to kill you. Her name was Halina, before Hydra got to her," he explained. "They gave me her profile… Halina Antonivna Doroshenko."

He closed his eyes trying to follow that detail to the rest of the memory. He heard a cold voice say her name in Russian, saw a computer screen, black with bright green text with her details in neat lines.

 _Name: Halina Antonivna Doroshenko  
Age: 22  
Eye Colour: Brown  
Hair Colour: Brown  
Height: Unknown  
Nationality: Ukrainian  
Current Location: Strasbourg, France (Unconfirmed)_

Галина Антонівна Дорошенко. Who she had been before they had made her into something else, just as they'd done to him.

"Maybe we can find something out about her, now that we know her name," Steve suggested.

"Maybe," Bucky repeated. "But I doubt there'll be much useful. Once Hydra got her, they wouldn't keep using her real name, and anything public would be pretty irrelevant by now."

"It's worth a try. I'll get Natasha on it tomorrow," he said as he pushed up off the couch.

Bucky shrugged, grabbing the remote as Steve headed for the bathroom. It was probably a waste of time, but maybe it could tell them why Hydra had needed her in the first place enough to send him after her.


	7. Chapter 7

**New York City, USA  
16** **th** **November, 2016**

She followed them silently from the rooftops, trailing their path as they wandered the streets.

They went into clothing stores. They bought sandwiches. They sat on benches.

The area was built up, certainly urban, but hardly the bustling centre that the city proper was. She wondered briefly how she knew what the city centre was like. She didn't think she had ever been there, but she could picture bright yellow taxis trapped in gridlock, towering monuments of concrete and glass stretching skyward all around. She quickly cast the mental image aside, though, because in this place the buildings were no taller than five stories and that was what mattered.

Her hands clutched at her rifle. It was heavy and unwieldy, especially as she had to find a way across streets and alleys where rooftops were some way apart. She was sure she didn't normally do this.

The scene was familiar enough; crouched far above the streets, waiting for the right time to strike, ignoring the harsh wind and the cold that slithered into the tiniest vulnerabilities in her clothing. But normally it wasn't so hard to traverse the gaps between buildings. She didn't lug assault rifles across neighbourhoods.

She was confused, and it was hard to ignore. Questions kept popping up and she didn't have any answers. It made her head hurt.

She stole another look at the pair of men, sitting at a table out on the footpath. They were smiling and laughing. A boy placed a pair of mugs on the table, then retreated back into the café. It looked warm inside, and she wondered why the men chose to sit outside. She couldn't feel her fingers, and the cold, compounded with the hours of crouching stiffly lest the mark see her, made it hurt to move her joints.

The sun shone on the street, though. It lit their faces in its buttery glow, while the taller building beside hers kept her in shadow. She sighed slightly, her breath clouding crisply in front of her, but did not consider moving. The sunnier the hiding spot, the less effective.

She watched the sun glint off the jewellery of passers-by, catch on the long chestnut hair of the man who sat with the mark as the wind gently tossed it about. Without the buffer of the buildings, it tore at any of her hair left loose, buffeting her and trying to knock her over. The small part of her that drifted, not focused on her mission, envied their calm afternoon on the sheltered footpath.

The target said something, and the other man laughed loud enough for the sound to carry to her ears over the hum of traffic and pedestrians. He smacked the blond on the shoulder as his head fell back. In that moment, his deep laugh bounced up to her and around her little rooftop, becoming louder and distorted and ugly as it ricocheted around in her skull, he wasn't familiar to her at all.

The more different he was, the more desperate she became to understand how. She was perplexed by the strange relief and satisfaction that bloomed deep inside her when he looked happy. She was furious with herself, but she watched him with a greater intensity than the target.

Some time later, not an immeasurable length of time but one that went unmeasured because it didn't matter, they got up from their table. She crept along the roof as they progressed through the crowd of shoppers. They paused at the corner just across from her building. After a brief discussion, they crossed the road.

They were cutting through the alley right near her hiding spot. She flew to the best spot at the little wall that enclosed the rooftop, unfolding her gun industriously. Just a few seconds later, she was ready to take the shot.

Her attempts to use someone else had failed. Some people were easily manipulated into aggression, but they didn't tend to make very good assassins. The target was too skilled, and he was defended by his ally. It would take too long to bend someone capable into taking him out, so the best option was to do it herself.

She stayed low as they walked right past her spot, popping up to take aim at the back of the target's head.

Her hands shook, nausea swelling as she lined up her shot. Panic swelled up, and she noticed the deep purple glow break out from her skin. She was desperate not to shoot, and she wouldn't have been able to say why.

An ear-splitting headache was steadily building, but she forced herself on. If she was ill or somehow compromised, it could wait until the mission was complete.

"Фокус," she breathed, voice husky from disuse.

"Focus," she repeated, squeezing the trigger on the second syllable.

She didn't know what exactly gave her away, but the man with the long hair jerked around the moment before she shot, throwing an arm up defensively to block the target's head.

Technically, the calibre of that gun should have smashed right through and killed him anyway, messing up the interfering arm for good measure. But she knew it wouldn't. There was something special about the arm, it was a deep and accepted truth within her.

The colourful glow flared brighter, the deep purple pulsing out and creeping into blue. The both stared up at her, stances defensive.

She was immobile. She didn't know what to do, desperately thinking that she needed to start by covering up the light shining out of her skin brightly enough to easily show through her jet black suit. The man with the brown hair stared up at her, eyes wild, and she couldn't move.

She looked at him like he might tell her. Help her. He used to help her and keep her safe. Her mind was flickering and jumping, like a badly damaged cassette, and all she could hear was static and screeching and gunshots and voices begging for mercy.

The target was still there, tense and ready to fight off anything that came at him. "Bucky?" he prodded in a low voice. The silent, narrow alley carried the sound easily.

"It's her," he responded hoarsely.

His voice sent her reeling. She vaguely registered that different colours were flickering and flashing through the deep sapphire, mostly a soft pink. Her hands were shaking worse than before.

"Солдат," she said, her voice wracked with emotion she couldn't understand or control.

He tensed, and the target jerked in surprise. He shot looks between the two of them.

The reminder of his presence helped her pull herself back into line. She knocked the gun back into its folded form and took off running.

A cry of "You go 'round!" left her in no doubt that she was being pursued. She opted to leave the bulky weapon behind, dropping it to the rough concrete under her boots and hurling the magazine over the edge. She didn't think they would shoot her based on the information she had been given, but it would be foolish to make it so easy.

As she reached the edge, she spared a glance over her shoulder. The man with brown hair had climbed the four-storey building with ease, on the side without fire escapes. She was unsurprised. She pushed off the low wall, easily clearing the small gap and falling one storey to the adjacent rooftop, rolling to land.

Sprinting to the middle of the much smaller space, she wrenched open the trapdoor there and dropped through, letting it clang shut behind her.

She was in dingy attic, and she let out a pulse of white light to scope for the exit. She ran for the door, leaping over piles of random junk like broken chairs and dusty mops, bursting out into the stairwell.

She flew down the stairs, flinging herself over the handrail to avoid most of them. Instead of continuing to the ground floor and out into the street where the target no doubt lay in wait, she ran into the first-floor corridor, making an effort to be quiet with the loud fire-proof door. As she made her way down the hall, trying the handles, she heard a bang indicating her pursuer had made it to the stairway.

A door gave way. She spun into the room and swiftly locked it behind her. A quick scan of the room presented a complication. Namely, there was someone in it.

A young man in boxers and a t-shirt sat on the couch, some kind of controller hanging forgotten in his hands as he gaped at her.

The combat gear would hamper the effect, but she opted for presenting herself as a non-threat.

"Oh my God, there's a man chasing me. I only just managed to get away. Can I hide here?" she panted quietly, walking closer. It was lucky that she tended not to carry many weapons, her small stature and open demeanour supporting her claim.

The boy looked alarmed. "Uh, yeah, okay. Do you want to call the police or something?" he asked, burying a hand in his wild curls as he half-stood.

No. "Yeah, that'd be great," she breathed. Another bang outside signalled someone in the hallway.

She frantically motioned for him to stay quiet, and he obediently froze, the only sound in the little apartment the cheery music from the television and victorious crowing as brightly animated characters tore past a stationary car in a cartoonish landscape.

Gesturing for him to stay put, she crept to the window. No sign of the target on the street below. She eased the window open and stuck her legs through, sliding her body out until she hung from the window sill. She dropped onto the lid of a dumpster and took off down the alley.

She ran through dark backstreets until she was well clear of the area, swinging around to head back to her base to regroup.

She was going to need a new plan of attack, and the swirling doubt and confusion wasn't going to help.

 **New York City, USA  
19** **th** **November, 2016**

Bucky was headed for the library, leaving Steve at the motel, when he felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck.

He slowed his pace and took out his mobile phone, nonchalantly scoping out rooftops as he went. He was sure she was here somewhere.

 _I think she's nearby. Stay alert._ He sent the text message to Steve as quickly as he could. Irritatingly, the touch screen flatly refused to acknowledge his metal hand.

A pink flash from across the street caught his eye. There, between two buildings, was a faintly glowing face he knew well. Since she had first collided with Steve – the reason for which still remained unclear, since she hadn't hurt him and they hadn't found a tracking device despite going over all of his clothes – he had dreamt about her more and more.

He often dreamt about his time as the Winter Soldier. He relived murders, relived sessions in the chair, and more recently, relived softer moments that had previously slipped through the cracks.

In the training room, she sometimes caught his eye and smiled at him across the room. Sometimes her smile was blank and empty, but sometimes it was real and fragile when she looked up at him. He had had no way to respond other than glare at her like he glared at everything else, but she was the only person to really smile at him over the seventy year period he was under Hydra's control. As she had gotten wilder, she had lashed out at handlers and guards who had tried to force either of them into the chair. She had called out to him, sometimes in Russian but often in languages he couldn't understand.

They made eye contact, staring at one another. The space around her flashed blue, but she made no move to run.

 _Across the street_ , he sent to Steve, then went back to staring at her. She wasn't here for him, but now that she'd been spotted she couldn't think she had a good shot at Steve. Yet she didn't run. She didn't attack. She just watched him, looking tense and conflicted.

Bucky stood still, trying not to scare her off. He knew better than anyone else ever could what she was going through, and knew it took time and patient persistence to break out from the bonds of the past.

That approach was shot to pieces when Steve charged out of the front entrance, making her jump and her aura snap to yellow. Her eyes flicked between him and Steve, back and forth as all three of them stood locked in a stalemate.

She spun and fled, battling down the light emanating from her body.

Bucky followed without hesitation. He charged across the road and into the alleyway, his powerful form and long legs covering ground far faster than his diminutive quarry. Steve made a noise that was midway between an annoyed groan and disapproving click of the tongue, but followed hot on his heels.

The Little One was doing a terrible job of evading them. She moved desperately as she fled, exhibiting little of the fluidity and silence of her usually precise movement. She stumbled and gasped her way through thin passages and secluded streets, vaulting and scrambling over obstacles as she went. It was lucky that she maintained enough sense to stay away from the crowds out for dinner, the area around them an unchecked psychedelic light show.

She cast looks over her shoulder, snapping her head back to see that they were still following her often. There was something about the movement, the contortion that just wasn't right. Her head seemed to be able to turn way too far around.

They were only a few feet behind her as she threw herself around yet another corner, into another alley. Except it was a dead end, walls several stories up on both sides. A fire escape at the back, but definitely out of her reach.

Their alcove was bathed in sickly yellow light. It shone out from under her skin, brightly enough that it was hard to look her in the face. Her body language communicated more than enough, though. She faced them, hyperventilating loudly enough for them to hear it from the mouth of the alley without difficulty despite the noisy kitchen of the restaurant next to them. She was hunched and coiled, fists clenched, but she was vibrating with anxious tension.

Panicked, afraid, aggressive.

Steve stood at his shoulder, letting him take the lead on this. They both knew that he was the one with the more experience with this kind of problem.

Holding his hands out soothingly, he took a slow step forward. She flinched, crouching slightly lower. He had to say something. Russian would be familiar and she would definitely understand, but it might be too negatively associated in her mind. She was French, sort of, but he'd only done a year of French in school and picked up a few phrases during the war, and he wasn't going to be saying anything terribly useful there. English it was.

"We don't want to hurt you," he said gently, looking at her earnestly. He met her wild stare as he spoke. Neither their handlers nor their targets had had a tendency to meet their gaze for long; it was too personal, or frightening.

"My name is Bucky. I remember you. Do you remember me?" he continued when he got no visible response.

The nauseating yellow seemed to mellow slightly, and tendrils of purple streaked through their small theatre.

"I remember you. What do you want? I am supposed to be chasing you, I remember this too," she asked defensively, in English heavily influenced by her French upbringing.

"We want to help you," he said simply, chancing another step forward.

She compensated with a step back warily, but she didn't have far to go before the brick boxed her in. The light coming out of her was wavering and had dimmed to a more comfortable glow, more purple than yellow. Her chest no longer heaved in desperation.

"I have orders. I must kill the target," she protested, sounding doubtful and troubled.

"You don't have to follow orders anymore," he said softly.

She stared. Her light flickered and flashed, and her expression was tortured and confused. "Just follow orders," she said, clutching her head and reverting to Russian. She chanted it over and over, shaking her head with her fingers clutching at her bound hair.

"Follow orders. But I can't, I can't kill him. I can only kill the others. I can only kill Steven Rogers; the Asset must live," she whimpered as she folded in on herself.

She sat on the wet, dirty concrete, knees drawn to her chest and face pressed into them, holding her head still. She was shaking and making tiny noises that might have been speech or sobs.

Bucky approached her slowly. Her breakdown seemed to be genuine and the need to protect her, comfort her was overwhelming. However, he knew who she was and that the way she worked was to present whatever version of herself would elicit the desired response from her target. If it was an act, she was doing her best work yet.

He crouched in front of her. "Halina?" he prodded gently, his voice low and soft as velvet.

She jerked at that, lifting her head enough to look at him. Her wide brown eyes were watery and unsure. "Halina," she whispered, trying it out. She frowned in concentration for several long moments, before a fleeting look of warmth and a flicker of pink light escaped her.

"Halina is my name," she said. "I have a name. Halina."

"You do, Halina. You have so much that you can take back. So much to remember. I'm doing it. Come with me, Halina," he murmured.

She lifted her head to look at him straight on, expression pinched but thoughtful. Her fingers slid out of her hair and sat limply on her booted feet. She was still curled up but encouragingly loosely.

"Мой солдат... Bucky," she mused. "Okay, I will go with you."

He grinned, earning an answering strained smile. He offered her a hand which she took easily, pulling her to her feet. He held onto it as he guided her towards Steve, ready to grab her if she tried to attack.

"This is Steve. He's been my best friend since we were little kids," he said conversationally.

She looked wary and mystified, assessing him but not replying.

Steve gave her a smile and a little salute. "Halina. I look forward to knowing you. I promise I'll do everything I can to help you get your memories and control back," he said cheerily.

"Can you, uh, turn the light off? It's a little eye-catching, especially at night. We want to be inconspicuous wherever possible, ever though we can mostly avoid people on the way to the motel…." Bucky frowned, attempting to be polite but not really sure how to make his request.

She didn't answer, but the light she emanated faded quickly until it was completely gone.

"Let's go," Steve said, and they all began the walk back to the motel room.

 **l l l**

Halina had said very little since they had left the alleyway. They tried to leave her in peace, at least for now, as she stared off into space, scowling like she was on the verge of a great discovery but the final piece of the puzzle was missing.

When they agreed Steve would go out to bring back pizza, she unexpectedly chimed in that she loved capsicum, particularly on pizza.

Once he left, she continued to stare at the curtains, sitting primly on a chair at the table Bucky had gestured to when they had returned nearly an hour ago. Her dark hair was still in its severe braid, black jumpsuit still in place, utility belt and weapons included.

She watched the curtains, and he watched her.

"He wanted me to take out everyone. The Avengers and their allies. Start with you and Steve, then Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts… So many people. But when he told me to kill the Winter Soldier, I refused. No matter how many times he started over, when he got to you, soldat, I fought it off. Eventually he gave up and left you out," she said, the shifting and slippery memory of the electrocution making her voice thick.

He pushed off the wall against which he had been leaning, slowly taking a seat opposite her. She didn't look away from the obscured window, but he was sure she was staying aware of where he was and what he was doing.

"Because you remember me."

Her eyes snapped to his. "I always remember you," she said forcefully. They stared at one another, she with determination and he with surprise, until a small commotion at the door announced Steve's return.

Bucky broke away to help him in and get the plates, leaving Halina to cast her eyes about the room as if she had only just noticed it was there.

As though powered by muscle memory, she accepted the plate Steve tentatively held out to her and pulled a piece from one of the boxes. She took a bite of the green-pepper-topped slice, chewing but once before freezing with a twisted expression on her face.

The men froze, waiting to see what she would do.

"I don't like… how do you say… 'оливки'?" she complained in disgust. She swallowed her mouthful as she slapped the pizza down on her plate and set about picking the offensive fruits off.

"Olives," Bucky chuckled. He snagged a few from the pile on her plate and balanced them on his own slice, happily munching without concern.

She regarded him with something between apprehension and curiosity as she ate her de-olived pizza. After a while, she reached for a new piece, picking the olives off again. As she took her first bite, she turned her attention to Steve, studying him quietly.

"What is your favourite colour?" she asked softly.

Both of her companions were taken aback.

"What?" Steve asked blankly.

She frowned. "My English was never great. Which colour do you prefer?" she tried again with a concentrated look.

"Blue, I guess. Why?" he replied.

"I was given a profile of my target. Information that could help me find you, and get close to you. Weaknesses. I know you are patriotic and moral, born in the early twentieth century. Strong, mutual emotional tries to James Barnes," she rattled off. "They tell me things like that to help me choose how to present myself to best appeal to you, or manipulate you."

"That doesn't really explain the colour thing," Bucky pointed out.

She gave a rueful, if somewhat strained, smile. "The point is, I know your background. But I don't know you. We are not friends. I remember it was something I used to ask people… before. When I had friends," she said.

They ate quietly, musing on that for a few minutes before Steve perked back up.

"Bucky likes yellow. What's your favourite colour?" he smiled, cheerily ploughing ahead without concern for the touchiness that could surround her patchy memory courtesy of years of mind-control.

Halina frowned, pushing her lips out to the side as she struggled to recall. "Red. The embroidery on the shirts people wore on special days back in the village was so bright. I always loved it," she said softly, a nostalgic smile stretching over her perfect little teeth. Her accent sounded slightly less French and more Ukrainian as she recalled the dress of her homeland.

"Favourite season?" Bucky asked around a mouthful of pizza after a moment of quiet reflection.

With a sparkle of amusement, she answered, "Winter," earning a laugh from the other two. "It feels crisp and fresh. Purer than the other seasons. The trees without leaves are beautiful, but sad. Strong and steadfast, but bare and… alone? I mean, lonely."

"I like spring. Everything is blooming and lively. Not to mention, now that my asthma and allergies are gone, I get to actually enjoy it far better," Steve offered.

"I'm a summer kind of guy," Bucky threw out simply.

They went around like that for another half hour, until all the pizza was gone. While Steve started cleaning up, Bucky pulled a clean t-shirt out the closet.

"Since you don't have any other clothes with you, you can sleep in this," he said as he handed it to her.

"You can take my bed, too. I'll sleep on the couch," Steve piped up from the sink.

"No, Steve, I can take the couch," Bucky dismissed him.

Steve turned around to argue, but Halina walked over to assess the small sofa. Flicking her eyes between it and the pair of large men, she interrupted their selflessness-off with an unexpected laugh.

"I'm the smallest by far. It makes sense for me to sleep here," she said.

Bucky scowled and opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off.

"I really don't mind, and either of you would hurt yourself trying to fit. Besides, I'm used to sleeping on the floor, this is already a step up," she said with a meaningful look at Bucky.

He assessed her for a moment, then nodded. "Fine," he conceded. "You can take a shower, if you want. The bathroom's just there."

She glided to the door he indicated, peering into the room for a long moment before going and closing the door behind her.

Bucky and Steve shared a long look. Steve gave a shrug and Bucky returned it, dropping into the armchair to channel surf until it was his turn in the bathroom.


	8. Chapter 8

**New York City, USA  
20** **th** **November 2016**

Halina slept like the dead until after midday. After a whispered conversation and eating their cereal as quietly as they possibly could, the other occupants of the suite stayed in their respective tiny bedrooms. They wanted to let her sleep for as long as possible, and give her as much privacy and space as they could. Another reason she should have been given one of the beds, but the fact that they hadn't heard a peep out of her in more than fourteen hours indicated it wasn't that much of a problem for her.

Bucky looked up from the newspaper he was reading, cross-legged on his double bed that might have actually been a slightly over-sized single bed with extra lumps, when his door swung inwards.

Standing behind it was Halina, looking a little lost. She wore the plain grey shirt he had given her last night, falling more than halfway down her thighs due to her diminutive stature, her dark hair curling wildly down to her hips.

They stared at each other. He was waiting for her to say something to explain why she was at the door, and she seemed to be waiting for some kind of instruction. She only seemed to get more confused and frustrated the longer the silence stretched, so he decided to be the one to break it.

"Hey. How did you sleep?" he asked, folding the paper and setting it down on the blanket.

"Well. I haven't slept much recently, so it felt good," she smiled, stretching as though the question had brought the whole thing to her attention.

Refusing to trail his eyes over the additional flesh the action revealed as he once would have, he continued to focus on her face.

"Why is that? No bed?" he asked tentatively. He didn't want to stress her out over faulty memory – he knew how much that sucked – but they were going to have to get some information out of her at some point. Someone out there had dug up a long-lost Hydra human weapon and set it after the Avengers. To say the least, it required investigation.

"I had to watch. I didn't really have time. The tracker on Steve will remain functional for a while yet, but I stayed close and observed as much as possible," she explained.

He frowned in confusion. "What tracker? We checked his clothes after you bumped into him, there was nothing there," he said.

She smiled a little deviously, and left his doorway. When she returned a moment later, it was with her utility belt. From one of the little holsters, she drew what looked like a small but clunky smartphone. Hitting a button on the side, she woke up the screen. It showed an aerial view of the immediate area, just a few streets around, with a flashing red symbol right where their room would be.

"It's not a device. It's an energy signature. Smear a little fast-drying gel on someone and you can track the signal for weeks," she said smugly, having to lean over the mattress to pass him the handset.

He fiddled with the tiny computer, finding as infra-red view and a map of the neighbourhood with random touching. Touch screens were a lot less intuitive than they seemed to people who had been eased into it via bridging technologies.

"Is anyone else going to be able to track Steve with this?" he asked.

"I don't think so. I don't think he wanted to be directly involved with the mission," she mused, tugging gently at her hair while she stared off to the side.

Bucky watched her struggle to make sense of what she had seen and heard but not processed. He knew what that felt like. As the Winter Soldier, he had been conditioned to cast aside data that didn't help with his mission, which made making sense of his memories difficult. He had to recall what people had said and how they looked and sounded when they said it in order to work out emotions, intentions, deeper meanings. It was frustrating and the more he concentrated, the more the fleeting impressions slipped through his fingers like sand.

He patted the bed in front of him. "Sit down," he instructed.

She seemed slightly disorientated as she refocused on him, but folded herself onto the bed with flowing grace. She looked at him patiently, head cocked to the side, small smile in place. It was much like the smile she had always worn when she had been the Little One, but now it reached her eyes. They weren't vacant; curiosity and something like affection swirled in their warm brown depths.

"Okay, put your hands out like this," he said, shuffling closer and holding his hands out flat, palm down. "My sisters used to play this game when we had to do something boring and they couldn't bring any toys."

He held his hands over her tiny ones, hovering several inches higher.

"All you have to do is slap the back of my hands. I'll try to pull them out of the way, but if you were only bluffing then you get to slap me for free. You miss, it's my turn," he explained.

She listened seriously, before frowning at his left hand. "Why do I feel like this is rigged in your favour?" she pouted.

He laughed, and she looked awed by the sound. "Just don't slap too hard, jeez," he warned.

She gave him a look, pulling her hands up to slap his without looking.

"Hey!" he protested, but shifted to looking at their hands to avoid a repeat. "No fair," he grumbled.

She jerked her hands out sideways, and he flinched back.

"Ha!" she crowed. "You're not very good at this. You're going to lose at your own game."

"In my defence, I haven't played in a long time, and it was never–" he cut off when she slapped him on the cheek. Not hard, but not exactly softly either.

"You're supposed to slap my hands," he complained.

"You never said that," she sang, making another attempt for his hands. This time, however, he yanked them back in time to avoid a slap.

"Oh yeah! Okay, hands up," he said smugly, nudging her hands higher to where his had been.

His reflexes were better, and he got in several gentle taps on her hands before he feinted and she didn't fall for it. They swapped positions and started again.

"What do you remember about how you came to be after Steve?" he asked softly.

Her hands twitched, but she remained calm. "I was alone. At the facility. No, wait… there were two men, they woke me from cryo, but they were scared and confused. They ran away while I looked for a handler. Everyone was gone. I waited for a few days, then I just… left," she said quietly. He pulled his hands back from a slap and they reversed positions.

"What then?" he encouraged.

"I walked. Orchards and paddocks. Hills. Streams. Villages in the distance. Everything was so sad and confusing… And then he came in a car. He told me he had my mission. We drove for a long time, took three aeroplanes, drove some more, and then we were at an abandoned building in this city. He gave me the files, told me to kill them all. I said I wouldn't do it. He didn't have a chair, like at a base, but he had a briefcase with some kind of machine in it to electrocute me. I kept saying no, and eventually he just told me to follow the first target," she continued. At first her voice was weak, but it strengthened into disgust as she spoke. Her hands began to glow red, as did the rest of her most likely, but he kept his eyes on the game as they continued to play.

"Do you know his name?" he asked.

"No."

"What language did he speak?"

"Russian, of course. But badly. Sometimes he didn't make much sense, and I had talk into some device for him before he seemed to understand. I think it translated what I said," she said thoughtfully. "That would be quite some technology. Revolutionary."

"We should ask Steve. Seems like the kind of thing that's around these days," he snorted. "What was his accent like?"

"Maybe English? I'd say English-speaking, but not British, I think," she guessed.

"What did he look like?" he asked.

"Tall, slender, red hair," she responded quickly, then paused to think. "Really bad haircut, gross beard."

He chuckled at that. They both jumped when their private little word was fractured by the door bursting open. Bucky jerked up to look at the door, and Halina whipped her head around to stare with wide-eyed alarm.

Steve stood in the open doorway, hand gripping the knob.

"Oh, there you are. I was just worried you'd… wandered off," he said apologetically, before doing a double take.

Bucky gave him a look and incredulous shake of the head, wondering why he looked so disturbed, until his eyes flicked down to Halina.

Her body was mostly facing him, back to the door but twisted and hunched slightly to look at Steve. She had her head turned to look over her shoulder, but the problem was it was nearly facing him dead on. As though her neck were completely broken.

They both stared in abject horror as she turned back and forth, looking concerned and fearful at their troubled expressions.

Bucky recalled the letters he had read between those bastard Hydra scientists, talking about experimenting on her using animal DNA and something about flexibility. Whatever they had done, apparently it had worked.

The beseeching look she cast them brought Steve, ever the gentleman back to himself.

"Sorry, Halina. We didn't mean to be rude. It's just, uh, your neck is unusually mobile," he explained uncomfortably.

She cocked her head, looking confused.

"A friend of ours managed to recover some data from a Hydra base that included letters between scientists. Discussing you, and some of the experiments they were doing on you," Bucky explained gently.

She shuddered and folded in on herself, eyes haunted as she watched him. He didn't know if she would want space or comfort, if he should keep going or leave her in peace.

He was torn. He had needed to be left alone for a time, where no one would order him to do things he didn't want to or expect him to know things he couldn't possibly remember. For so long, the only touch he had known was to hurt, he could barely stand people coming close. But everyone was different, the two of them always had been, and maybe it would help.

He placed a comforting hand on her arm, where she could easily escape the contact. She gawked at it, then at him. After a few tense seconds, she gave a smile, taking his much larger hand in her own and lacing her fingers with his tightly. Her warm digits gripping his, she gave him a brave nod to continue.

"They talked about using DNA from animals on you in order to somehow change the way your body works," he went on.

She shivered. "I remember. The preparation was bad, all the treatment was, but whenever they spliced something in, I felt like I was going to die. But I never did," she rasped. "I remember they talked about some experiments they did on the children at my village school, before we fled the Soviet Union. That's why they could do it. It killed a lot of the other villagers when they'd tried."

The quiet revelation in her lulling French accent hung in the room for a long while after she made it.

Steve, bless him, never knew when to let things lie and soon disrupted the mournful atmosphere of the room with his thirst for knowledge. "Is it just your neck, then?" he asked, about as diplomatically and subtly as he could.

She graced him with an amused smile, though, so maybe tact was overrated.

"Of course not. The one they were proudest of is this," she said, holding up a hand as she began to glow a soft white. "It took a lot of crazy scientists to get it to this point."

She held the hand out toward the wall and made finicky little movements, and an apparition of Freddie Mercury appeared in the room, frozen in song with an arm in the air as he belted out a note none of them could hear.

Steve jumped and made an enthused and awestruck wowing noise. "That's incredible. Who is he?" he asked with a grin.

She giggled. "I'm not sure. Fred something, I think. I had a poster with him on it a long time ago," she shrugged. She let her hand drop, and Freddie was no more, crisply disappearing without a sound.

"In essence, they stole this from a bioluminescent fish. I saw some of them in a tank at the base once. It got more complicated over the years," she shrugged, her aura turning a light blue as she looked down a dejectedly. "I wonder how many animals they killed to make me this way."

"They're just fish," Bucky said soothingly.

She pinned him with a sour look. "Actually, there were owls and all kinds of birds. Insects, furry little things I never got to see up close…" she trailed off with a pout. "I was a vegetarian before I was a murderer, you know."

Steve chuckled at that, clearing his throat loudly when she cast him the same haughty expression.

"So, uh, I was thinking that we could go shopping, just get some clothes and stuff since you didn't bring anything with you," he suggested.

Halina looked taken aback, then thoughtful, as though she had forgotten what shopping was. Going out to purchase what you wanted was a very different thing to having necessities simply supplied.

"You can just tell us what you want and we'll get it for you, if you'd rather stay here," Bucky offered when she didn't respond.

"No, thank you. I'd like to come," she decided.

"Alright. You're going to need to borrow some pants; I'll see if I have anything that will stay up," Steve said doubtfully before disappearing, presumably to his own tiny bedroom.

With a final squeeze of her hand, Bucky got up off the bed and crossed to the closet. Rifling through the drawers, he pulled out a plain grey hoodie and tossed it to her.

"It's been cold, lately. You're going to need something to stay warm," he explained.

She stood and slipped her arms into the sleeves, giving him an accusing look. The sleeves went far beyond her fingertips, her tiny frame swimming in the almost knee-length garment. She shoved the excess fabric up her forearms, the elasticated cuffs barely holding the bunched cloth up her slender arms.

He laughed aloud as he shrugged into his own jacket, faded denim with a black hood. "Yeah, nothing Steve or I own is ever going to fit you. We're trying, okay?" he sniggered.

Steve returned with tracksuit pants with a drawstring, handing them over with a helpless shrug. When she held them at shoulder height they nearly touched the ground. Being petite came with advantages, like being able to access tight spaces and being a smaller target, but her accordingly short legs were the source of constant chagrin, be it because it slowed her running speed or because her allies' pants were far too long to borrow.

With a sigh, she slid them on, tucking the large white shirt she wore loosely in. Both men looked at her thoughtfully. She looked more than a little strange, and it would be compounded by the heavy-duty leather boots she would have to put back on.

Snapping his fingers, Steve grabbed a cap from Bucky's closet and perched it backwards on her head. It made the whole look seem a little more intentional.

"Okay, shoes on and let's roll out," he said, looking at her proudly.

 **l l l**

They focused on the basics. A few pairs of jeans and tracksuit pants, some t-shirts and jumpers, sneakers. Socks and underwear.

Practical, nothing outlandish or eye-catching.

Apparently, the boys had been lying low even before they had heard of this new enemy who had sent her, and the last thing they wanted was for her to draw undue attention to their little crew.

At first, she had stayed close to Bucky's side, not touching but within easy reach. The familiarity of his watchful presence was soothing, even more so since he had lost his violent edge. Steve walked ahead of them, confident and relaxed. Halina found she liked him and wanted to trust him, and not just because she trusted Bucky and Bucky trusted him. He seemed genuine, and like when he said he didn't want to hurt her he meant it. Moreover, she didn't horrify or terrify him. She could see him being a friend. Flashes of old acquaintances from her time before the chair and the experiments told her he was just what she liked in a person. Her mother would like him, she thought.

And then there was Bucky.

From where she stood now, fingering a beautiful, flared, floral dress in a department store, she could see him wandering the tiled path between carefully regimented rows of racks. He was weighed down with countless bags, carrying her purchases without complaint, as he idly looked over the shop's wares. Unless he thought they carried pencil skirts in his size, he obviously wasn't interested in anything in this part of the store, but he stayed close anyway. In case she needed him.

Of course, one could take the view that he was stopping her from running away or hurting someone, but there was no reason to let her leave the motel if that were his only motivation. Instead of pumping her for information and/or just killing her to get rid of the problem, he was determined to go at her pace. He was so different from the ruthless killer she had known, and yet he was the same. Protective, strong, and fundamentally good. Certainly, she had seen him do awful things, just as he had watched her commit atrocities, but there was something there. An instinct to defend the weak, an inherent reluctance to harm, unless directly made to.

Certainly, he bore the scars from his time as a plaything of the deranged hand of Hydra, as she no doubt would find she did as she moved out from under that shadow, but he was good, as she was sure he had been before they had taken him.

She realised at that point that he was staring back at her as she examined him, deep in thought. She blinked, embarrassed, snatching the dress in front of her and darting to the change rooms.

She found an empty stall and slid the curtain closed. After a few deep breaths, she looked down at the dress she held. It was a baby pink, elegantly tailored, and decorated with a myriad of floral appliques. She had mostly made off with the dress as an excuse, but since she was here, she reasoned she may as well try it on.

She pulled her feet out of the boots she had left unlaced after trying on the third pair of pants, easily shedding the oversized clothing she still wore. She carefully wiggled into the dress, the silky material sliding over her skin softly in an unfamiliar way. Fastening the pearlescent buttons, she looked at her reflection.

Her dark curls fell unchecked past her waist, where the fitted dress struck out from the curve of her body into a delightfully poofy skirt. She grinned, twisting this way and that to admire the frock from different angles. She was somewhat unused to the modern and sleek style that seemed to be popular at present, but this dress was new and timeless.

Her smile died suddenly, though, when she twirled and her hair swung aside to expose her back. She hadn't noticed when it was on the rack, but it was cut very low on the back, almost to its small. Turning side-on to the mirror, she pulled her tresses over her shoulder with shaking hands. It had been a long time since she had seen them; she never looked, always kept them folded and hidden.

The dark splotches of colour on her café crème skin made her head spin with nerves and barely withheld panic, but she refused to look away. Her skin glowed a faint blue at her roiling horror and conflict as they twitched. Gasping slightly for air, body locked tight, she unfolded her wings, the iridescent green catching on the bland lighting of the change room.

They fluttered and flicked lightly, involuntarily, unused to being held out, rather than flat against her and stuffed under her clothing. They were big, the upper tips of the forewings reaching about a hand-span above her head from their base at her waist, and the rear wings, their decorative and intricate fake eyes barely making it to the tops of her thighs. Big, dark and freakish.

The blue pulsed stronger, deepening to a rich sapphire as nausea built in her stomach. The dark green wings flicked nervously of their own accord as she fought a losing battle for control.

"Mommy, when can we go look at the toys?" came a high-pitched whine from a few feet away, which Halina would have ignored had not the owner thrown open the curtain a moment later.

"In a minute, darling, I'm just trying on the last dress," a woman replied indulgently from the next stall over. The little girl had obviously meant to enter her mother's cubicle and miscounted.

Halina's halo had flashed to yellow with the shock of her spiral of self-hatred being interrupted so rudely, and it was far beyond her control at that point. She stood, frozen, staring at the child who had stopped with one hand clutched in the curtain and one foot in the 'room.' She was glowing, wings fluttering sporadically behind her as though ready for fight or flight – as if they'd be much use to her.

There was no way the little girl, appearing about eight, was going to let this go without noticing the oddities in this situation.

"Are you a fairy?" she whispered in awe after the most agonising wait in a long series of incredibly long and agonising waits that comprised Halina's life thus far.

Halina blinked, taken aback. She certainly hadn't expected the girl to come up with her own explanation for the situation, but more to the point, she had never expected to be perceived so positively and without reproof.

Looking at the little plump lips bent in an O, the wildly curly hair springing around her little sweet face in every direction, and the excitement flaring in her big brown eyes, Halina couldn't have said no if she wanted to.

The light in the small space morphed into a bubble-gum pink as she regarded the little girl, bestowing upon her a conspiratorial smile as she leant down to her level (made considerably easier by her already unimpressive height).

"Yes, but you can't tell anyone," she whispered, placing a finger over her lips with a wink.

The little girl nodded, silently gaping.

"I'm Halina. What's your name?" she asked gently.

"Georgia," she grinned breathlessly. "Can you fly?"

There was the question. A little orange sneaked into the light she generated, echoes of the pain she had suffered because of that question rose up in the back of her mind, hissed in German-accented Russian.

"Well, I don't want to draw any attention to myself," she hedged, twisting her hands uncomfortably as Georgia's face fell. "But I suppose a little demonstration wouldn't hurt."

At her words, she clapped and gasped in excitement.

With a deep breath and a prayer, Halina stepped lightly onto the single stool provided in the corner of the drab space. Ignoring flashes of purple anxiety, she sprang lightly off, fluttering her wings against the irresistible pull of gravity. Sure enough, the paper-thin unwanted limbs slowed her descent, letting her float gracefully back to the ground like a feather.

Georgia looked so excited she might scream, pass out, or explode. Or all three. She settled on applauding, which Halina shushed as gently as possible.

"How about a little good luck spell before I send you back to your mother? As a thankyou," she offered, mostly in a bid to keep her calm and quiet.

Surprisingly, she didn't just blindly accept the offer. "Why? What did I do?" she questioned, tight ringlets bouncing as she shook her head.

"Well, Georgia, not everybody is as nice to fairies as you are. And I'm very grateful you came to talk to me when I was feeling sad, and wishing I wasn't what I am," she said, trying to be honest but not too revealing.

The little girl nodded sagely. "My daddy is like that. He was a soldier, but he doesn't want to be anymore. Sometimes he can't stop crying," she said seriously. "Can you give him the good luck spell instead?"

"Well… How about one for you, and one for the next person whose cheek you kiss? Make sure it's your daddy, and there you go," Halina suggested, moved by the deep consideration a young child could so artlessly display.

Upon receiving an enthusiastic nod from Georgina, she set golden sparkles dancing about her fingertips, drawing on the special candles she had had on her eighteenth birthday cake and the animated films she had seen as kid for inspiration.

 _"_ _Удачі вам і вашим_ _,"_ she intoned as she waved her hand over Georgia's head, letting the sparkles cascade over her and then disappear. She figured magic words were required, and magic words sounded better if they rhymed or were in a foreign language. Halina's high school English was definitely not going to make the jump into the realm of poetry any time soon, since she could barely understand television when they spoke too quickly.

"Good luck to you and yours," she repeated in Ukrainian and she pressed a finger to Georgia's slack lips, sending more golden glitter dancing across her skin for effect.

"All done," she declared with a smile, swapping back to English. "Now, you'd better go find your mother."

"Okay," she agreed happily. "Goodbye, Halina."

"See you around, Georgia," she smiled as the small girl skipped away to find her mother.

Turning back to the mirror, Halina took a long look at herself. Bare feet, pink dress, long dark hair, and big dark wings rearing up behind her, all bathed in the warm green glow that she cast unthinkingly.

For once, her reflection smiled back at her.

 **l l l**

For her current situation, the dress was completely unreasonable. She was sad to part with it, not that an outside observer would easily be able to tell. She had her light under control, wings stowed in her giant shirt, and expression even.

She gave it a lingering look as she replaced it on the rack, trying to memorise what it looked like so that when things were better, less restricted by crazy, mysterious grudge-matches, she could buy one just like it.

"It's pretty," a charismatic voice said.

She whirled to face him, before forcing her body to stay calm and not react out of her misguided training.

"Yes, it is, but it's not really what we're looking for," she noted, walking away.

"True, but if you really like it, you should get it," he replied as he followed.

"I wouldn't wear it," she declined.

"Doesn't matter," he countered as they looped back around to the front of the store where they said they would all meet when they were ready to leave.

"I couldn't wear it," she rephrased. "Not when you said we need to stay incognito."

He rolled his eyes and huffed in good-natured exasperation. "It's just a dress. How much attention can it really draw? Our guy would have to see you in it for it to do anything, and by then it's a bit late to be worrying about attire," he argued.

She came to a stop, looking off to the side as she struggled to come up with the right words to explain herself. "On anyone else, it's just a dress. On me… let's just say, it reveals some very unique characteristics," she said. He looked intrigued, tilting his head as he regarded her.

"Fine," she huffed. "Let me be clearer. Some of the stuff they did is very obvious on my back. I can't wear anything that exposes it unless you want people staring." It may not have sounded special to Bucky, but that she had managed to talk about her little oddity without saying anything outright derogatory about it was a testament to the progress she had made in that dressing room.

His eyes got serious, though, and he nodded, walking on without further comment.

Steve turned up a few minutes later, and they all swung by an Italian restaurant for take-away before returning to the hotel room for a quiet night in.

 **l l l**

They sprawled out over the couches in front of the TV, watching a kids' movie about anthropomorphic fish trying to find their missing child and chatting in the ad breaks as they feasted on giant pasta dishes.

Steve watched Halina with amusement as she tried to eat her vegetarian lasagne with only a fork, balancing the large plastic box in one dainty hand, tongue poking out the side of her mouth in concentration. With a few deft jabs and twists, she freed up another mouthful which she ate with a triumphant expression.

He caught Bucky's eye as he polished off his penne, giving him a meaningful look. Cheeks bulging out as he chewed, he frowned back. They had discussed this morning how they were going to approach the dilemma that Halina presented. She was their only lead on someone who wanted them and their friends dead, but she was delicate. Bucky had insisted that since he knew her and what she was going through, Steve ought to leave any sensitive questioning to him, but he seemed reluctant to actually ask her anything and risk upsetting her.

He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head towards her, receiving a set jaw and stubborn shake of the head in response. He huffed in quiet exasperation, nodding stiffly. Bucky shook his hand again and made a cutting motion with his hand.

Their unspoken argument was less subtle than they thought, apparently. She laughed musically, breaking their staring contest.

"Whatever it is, you can just say it," she smiled at Steve.

He smiled bashfully, looking down at his hands. "Right. We just didn't want to make this any harder for you," he apologised.

She shook her head. "You have already done so much for me. I thank you, and want to do what I can to return the favour," she said firmly.

"Well, you know that someone wants us dead, obviously. We're going to have to do something about that at some point. I was just wondering if you can tell us anything else about the man who sent you," he said.

She frowned down at her dinner, poking at it as she thought.

"He didn't talk to me much, except to tell me what to do. He did mention something about material wealth being the least of the things the Avengers cost him," she said slowly.

Steve nodded thoughtfully. Halina suddenly perked up as an idea occurred to her.

"Maybe there's something at the mission base that will help," she suggested brightly.

"Mission base?" Bucky cut in.

"Mm hmm. Where he took me when we got to New York in the first place. It was an old apartment building, with fences all around it and graffiti everywhere," she said, her expression clouding as she thought about the place.

"Do you know where it is?" Steve pressed.

"Yes. We might have to go via the roofs for me to recognise the way sometimes though," she smiled, but it was strained.

"Maybe you can show us the way tomorrow," he said.

"If you're okay with it," Bucky added pointedly, looking at Steve who shrugged innocently.

She nodded, turning back to the remaining lasagne without much enthusiasm. With a sigh, she dropped it onto the coffee table, sinking down into the sofa as the characters played out a ridiculous series of misunderstandings onscreen.

Her lips quirked up but she didn't look away from the set when Bucky swiped the box and started on her leftovers.

 **l l l**

Bucky huffed in annoyance as he rolled over for the nth time, still unable to fall asleep. It wasn't unusual for the early hours of the morning to find him tangled up in his sheets, tired but wide awake. Things were better than they had been, but sleep could evade him for almost days at a time, and when it did allow him into its pillowy embrace, he was often cast back into the waking world by horrifying spectres from his past.

Not bothering to check the time, he pulled his legs out of the tangled sheets, extricating himself from the knot of bedclothes his restlessness had created and creeping to the door.

He opened it slowly, peering into the darkened communal space. He could hear the wall clock ticking, the distant traffic that never quite stopped, Halina breathing. The quiet rhythm of the night.

As he padded over to the kitchenette to grab a glass of water, when a noise made him stop.

"Bonsoir," Halina greeted quietly from the couch. "Can you not sleep either?"

He had assumed that the little balled up form on the couch had been asleep, but it seemed otherwise.

"Uh, no. It can be hard, sometimes. You know, remembering things that I did, things that I saw," he whispered back, running a hand through his dishevelled hair.

It was hard to tell with almost no light in the room, but there was a shuffling and it looked like her head popped up from behind the couch.

"I can expect this to go on for some time, then," she sighed, propping her chin on a cushion.

He shrugged a little helplessly, filling a glass with water from a jug in the fridge. "It gets better as you go on," he soothed as he walked over to her, perching on the arm of the couch serving as her makeshift bed.

"What's keeping you up tonight?" she asked softly, eyes glittering in what little light came in from the street, slipping through the gaps in the curtains.

He looked down at his lap, flexing his metal fingers as he gathered his thoughts. "Guilt. I remember strangling a little boy while his mother watched. I don't even know his name, but I can still see the look in his eyes. And worry. That Steve will do something stupid like always; what that whacko is up to right now; you," he mumbled.

"Me? You think I'm going to… betray you?" she whispered back, sounding a little hurt.

"No, not that. I just know how hard it is. I worry about how you're doing, if you're okay. About making you safe," he explained.

She smiled, her teeth glinting at him though he couldn't see the details in her face. A cold hand came to rest on the exposed skin of his forearm.

"Thank you. If anyone can keep me safe, it's you. It does bother me, I admit. That I might wake up and be back there. I might forget everything except my orders," she whispered. As she spoke, her hand began to glow a very soft purple. She took a deep breath, and as her fingers tightened their hold, the light faded.

"Sorry. It's harder to control when I get emotional," she said, retracting her hand after several solid ticks of the cheap clock.

"It's fine," he assured her with a slow grin. "There are worse things than a light unruly glowing."

She smiled back, and then shivered, pulling the blanket back up her body.

"Are you cold?" he asked, setting the now empty glass on the coffee table as quietly as he could.

"I may be European, but I've never dealt very well with the cold," she laughed under her breath.

He raised an eyebrow. "You said winter was your favourite season," he challenged.

"It is. I just have to wear a lot of layers if I'm going to be walking around in it," she qualified.

He snorted as he stood and stretched. "Whatever you say. I'm getting cold enough that I want to go back to bed," he said. Boxers and a t-shirt were fine to sleep in as long as there was no need to get out of bed.

"Okay," she said, shivering again and wiggling farther down into her blanket cocoon. "Bonne nuit."

"Good night," he replied, fairly sure that was what she had said, backing away towards his room reluctantly.

"Er, Bucky?" she said hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"Would you be okay leaving the door open? It's okay if you don't want to, I just… I am thinking I'd feel better if… you were seeming… closer, if you understand me," she mumbled haltingly, her English becoming shakier in her discomfort.

"No problem," he smiled, then paused. "If you want, you could sleep in my room. Just if you think it will help."

She stared at him, shining in faint yellow. He hoped the light she let out didn't hit his face enough to reveal his blush. It was a distinctly awkward offer to make, but he hoped she'd accept. Not only because he wanted her to feel safe, but because he knew having her close would be a comfort to him too.

"Okay. Thanks," she said with an adorable smile, the light shifting into pink like fairy floss.

Leaving the blanket on the couch, she followed him into his room. The drab space seemed intimate and restful lit by her cheery beams.

He slid to the far side of the bed, tugging the sheets back into roughly the right place.

Halina stood with her arms tight across her body. She wore the same white shirt as before, hanging off her shoulders unevenly, blue plaid pyjama pants leaving only her toes exposed.

She perched on the edge of the bed, watching his reaction. He gave her as calm a smile as he could, dropping back onto his pillow and settling in, closing his eyes for good measure.

He gave her a minute before cracking an eye to toss her a look. She sat on the very edge of the mattress, motionless but for the undulating of the pink and purple streams of weak light around her.

"You can lie down, you know," he said drily, taking her wrist and pulling her down gently.

She slid under the covers, lying on her back parallel to him. She left a fair distance between them, the only contact his fingers still sitting on her wrist. He wondered if he should retract his hand, when she moved to hold it in her own, her cold little fingers wrapping around his long ones.

With a deep breath, she pulled her light back into her body, leaving a darkness so complete it pressed against his eyes.

He could hear the clock's muffled ticking through the closed door, the distant traffic that never quite stopped, Halina breathing evenly beside him. The soft rhythm of the night lulled him gently to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**New York City, USA  
21** **st** **November 2016**

When Bucky woke up, it was strangely peacefully. He wasn't left sweaty and with a racing heart, nor cold and haunted by what his subconscious had shown him during the night.

Rather, he was warm and secure, lazily coming back to his senses as he slowly floated back towards consciousness. Hair was tickling him under his jaw, which was not unusual given the length of his, but the comforting weight across his body was harder to place.

With a soft sigh, the weight shifted, calling for more lucid and immediate attention. He lay on his back in the middle of the bed, with Halina face down and half on top of him. Her head was tucked in the crook of his neck and she had an arm and a leg thrown over him. His own arms were loosely wrapped around her, keeping her close.

He didn't want to wake her, especially if sound sleep was going to be as hard to come by for her as it was for him, so he lay still beneath her.

If having the calming presence of another person nearby was all it took for him to get a good night's sleep, he wished he had asked Steve to keep him company weeks ago. Steve was a relatively private person, but he would have done it without hesitation if it would help. Besides, wartime accommodations hadn't been luxurious or private, he ought to be used to it to some degree.

It probably had to do with who it was sharing the bed, though. Halina wasn't just someone he had known when he was the Winter Soldier, someone he had been tasked to protect; he could say the same of a number of handlers and officers that he would sooner tear to shreds with his bare hands than let near him when he was vulnerable. She was soft where he was hard, light where he had been made to be dark. She was strong and cunning, possessing any number of strange abilities that could overwhelm an enemy, but she was kind and fragile at the same time. When she was upset and afraid, the last thing on she seemed to do was to attack and bring her unique skills to bear. His opposite; he lashed out at anything that threatened him.

She was one of very few people in the world that trusted him implicitly. Really the only other person who trusted him so much was Steve, who had the benefit of knowing him before he had been chewed up and spat out. It was more than a bit mystifying that she would let her guard down around him when she had only known him as a heartless killer.

He felt her stretch, letting out another sigh and mumbling something he couldn't understand. She lifted her head, looking around the room as though unsure where she was. She must have remembered because she was calm when she smiled down at him from where she hovered.

"Bon matin," she greeted cheekily. Her hair spilled over her shoulders, the glossy brown waves that bunched into corkscrews at their ends hiding the world apart from her behind its screen.

"Good morning," he smirked back, acting unruffled.

She retracted her arms from either side of him and the leg over his waist to sit upright beside him.

He stretched and pulled himself up to lean against the ugly wooden bedhead. She seemed relaxed, rested, and content, smiling sweetly at him. It was perplexing.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked cautiously.

He cleared his throat and looked away. "Nothing," he mumbled.

"Nothing?" she cajoled, leaning close to his face with a beseeching grin.

"It's just… I find it more than a little surprising that you seem to trust me," he huffed, turning his farther away in order to escape her gaze.

There was a pregnant silence. "Why?" she finally asked, sounding utterly nonplussed.

"You, of all people, should know that it's not a good idea. You've seen me at my worst, you know what I've done. You know that I could snap at any minute," he burst out, looking at her harshly. He glared at her, breathing hard, while she stared back with a shocked expression that slowly melted into displeasure.

"You're right. I remember the things they made you do. Made both of us do. I forget so many things, but I will never forget what they did to us. And that despite all that, you have always protected me. I don't think you've ever done something bad unless you were made to," she argued.

"No offence, but you've been out of play for a long time, as far as I can tell. You're hardly in a position to make that sort of claim," he countered, crossing his arms.

"Well, have you?" she demanded. When he didn't respond she smiled smugly. "That's what I thought."

"You know they _told_ me to protect you, right?" he pointed out, trying a different tack.

She shrugged. "Okay, that's true," she allowed, "at least, at first. But I'm pretty sure you had a soft spot for me whether we were on a mission or not."

He didn't reply, looking at the wall. They sat there in an annoyed standoff until she leant forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I tried to kill you and your friend. More than once. And I'm sure the two of you have the skills to take me down, especially when I was so… confused," she said, her voice low and soft as silk. Her tone was so full of intimate compassion that he met her eyes, albeit uncertainly. "But you didn't even try. You saw something in me that made you help me instead."

"I remembered you," he said simply.

"Remembered a killer? A weapon? A freak?" she challenged.

"No," he shook his head defiantly. "You fought it. I remember what you were like before all the training and the chair. I saw what they made you into, and I saw it when who you really are came through."

"And that makes you trust me?" she concluded, earning a nod. "Well, it's the same thing for you. There were times when I knew there was more going on in that head than what they put there, and now that's the part that's in control. I have no reason to _doubt_ you."

He thought about that for a while, staring at her so deeply it was as if he were looking into her soul. The sorrowful air that hung around the edges of his expression shifted to something hopeful, and she beamed back. A cheery green filtered over the room as she threw her arms around him in a sudden hug.

Bucky tensed up, shocked and unsure how to proceed.

"I used to do this to my friends when I was happy," she said into his shoulder. "Is it weird?"

He tentatively put his arms around her back, gently returning the gesture. Steve had hugged him a few times, but it was briefer and he made sure Bucky could see it coming. He supposed it was charming that she was content to throw herself into it with so much gusto.

"No, it's nice," he answered quietly.

With a final squeeze she let him go, demeanour shifting to nervousness. "There's something I think I want to show you," she said, the twisting of her fingers subconsciously twisting the whorls of green and purple in an otherworldly dance around her. "You asked me yesterday about the stuff they did to me, and there was one I didn't mention."

He tried not to show his alarm. She hadn't been all that phased by the abnormalities of her neck or the ability to conjure a halo, but whatever this was seemed to come with a lot of misgivings.

"Oh yeah?" was his calm and casual reply.

"I guess it's not that important, and the experiment was a technical success but a practical failure," she hedged. "More of a liability than as asset, to be honest. Never come in handy."

"Okay," he encouraged with a small smile.

She pushed back the covers over her legs and slid off the bed. She reached for the hem of her shirt, then paused. "Would you mind covering your eyes for a minute?" she asked.

He obeyed, listening to the quiet slide of soft fabric over skin for a few seconds before she said, "Alright, you can look."

She stood facing him, no longer wearing the shirt but holding it against the front of her body. She looked a little cold, anxious, but determined.

"They're my most visible mark. Glowing in the dark is pretty obvious, but I can usually control it. My only choice is to cover these up. Because of them, I can never pretend I'm the way I was before. I've always hated them the most of all," she said, choosing to be very vague and mystifying him further.

She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. Then, a pair of gleaming emerald wings flicked out from seemingly nowhere, twitching and stretching as they adjusted to their unfurled position.

"Wings," he said incredulously. "We saw some letters that mentioned attempting… wings… I assumed they'd failed…"

"Not totally," she sighed.

"Where were they?" he puzzled, jumping out of bed to stand behind her, marvelling at the things.

"I fold them up, under my clothes," she said, tucking the delicate appendages back over each other. They were so lightweight that they were totally flush with her back, leaving large dark shapes that could be mistaken for a strange tattoo. She opened them out again, eliciting a quiet _'whoa'_ from her audience.

"They're a bit delicate; not much use in a confrontation or seduction," she shrugged.

"Can you… fly?" he asked, almost laughing at himself for asking, but when someone had wings it became a much more reasonable question.

She laughed, and the light dancing around her was back to green again. "Like a chicken with poor instincts," she griped. "Watch."

She stepped up onto the bed, and then jumped up and off the edge. Her wings caught the limited light in the room, gleaming almost metallically as they beat. She floated gracefully to the ground.

"I can slow a fall. Jump a little higher. Essentially, no," she sighed. "They're not the right kind of wings for a person. I remember hearing one of the scientists explaining to a young man, probably an assistant. You need wings like a powerful bird, but they couldn't work out how to attach them to a human skeleton that already had arms; there's nowhere for all the extra bones to go. Insect wings needed mostly muscles which are, apparently, easy as pie to add."

Her mouth twisted down as she looked over her shoulder at them. If she was stuck with the wings, it was definitely in her best interests to try to come to terms with them as a part of her rather than simply lasting evidence of her treatment under Hydra's control.

"They're beautiful," he murmured truthfully, eyes tracing the elegant silhouette.

She blinked up at him, looking surprised but pleased. Her wings fluttered excitedly as she favoured him with a flustered smile. He wondered if their movement was as linked to her emotions as the light that escaped her seemed to be.

She turned away, folding up the wings and slipping the shirt back over her head.

"Thank you for showing me," he said seriously.

She met his gaze unflinchingly. Eventually she nodded, smiled, and led the way out of the room.

 **l l l**

Halina's prediction had been right. Once they had all eaten and dressed, and Steve had traded enough significant looks with his oldest friend after their charge and he had left his room together, they set out to scope out the base. They had only gone to blocks when she started getting frustrated.

They stood in a random side street, waiting for her to decide where to go next. She viciously stabbed her fingers through her hair, growling as she looked around. They left her in peace for a minute, before Steve spoke up.

"You mentioned it might be easier to find a way back from the rooftops. If that's how you normally travelled through here, it makes sense," Steve suggested offhandedly.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose.

"Ouais. C'est ça qu'il faut faire," she muttered to herself.

Bucky looked around, spotting a building with a fire escape on its side. He jerked his chin towards it, leading the other two around into the little alleyway. As was not uncommon, it wasn't meant to be easily accessed from street level, where anyone could get in. The first landing had previously featured a retractable ladder, based on the sawn-off steel left behind. Whether it had disappeared in keeping with the general dilapidation of the building or had been intentionally removed to discourage ne'er-do-wells (it was hardly the nicest part of the city) trying anything, if that building caught fire, there were going to be a few broken ankles from the jump down.

Steve easily sprang up, grabbing onto the edge of the hole that had housed the ladder, wiggling up onto the metal grating. He popped his head back over to look down at them.

Bucky sized up Halina. If she stood on his hands and Steve reached down, they might make it work. If she was too short, the easiest thing might be to throw her up and have him catch her.

"What a shame about the wings, non?" she sighed.

"So, flying's out. How do you feel about being thrown?" he smirked.

She shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time," she grinned back.

He reached for her slowly, watching for signs of reluctance, but she sent him an encouraging smile and took a small step closer. They both looked up to size up the target. For the record, throwing an entire person isn't easy. He could easily heft someone many times her bodyweight, but it was unwieldy. He had a vague memory of throwing her while she was curled up in a ball, towards water and out of a building that was about to become deadly for whatever reason. He decided to go for a simpler route.

"Stand on my hands," he said, holding them out just in front of his hips.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, lightly stepping into position. He was glad for the sake of her manoeuvrability she was able to dress more suitably today, in sneakers, jeans and a shirt and jacket in her own size.

She balanced effortlessly in his gasp, not needing to brace her legs against his chest as she focused on the hole in the wire flooring with her head tilted back.

Bucky lined her up exactly before boosting her up into the air, careful not to throw her harder than necessary.

She glided through the air like she was born for it, easily snagging both hands on the fire escape. She swung up gracefully, rolling over backwards to stand in one smooth movement. Steve looked impressed, moving back from the hole once he was sure his help wasn't required. Bucky leapt up to join them, flipping over the handrail instead of bothering with the narrow manhole.

The small party climbed the rusty stairs to the roof, waiting for Halina to garner some new insight from the improved vantage point. She looked around thoughtfully for a minute, before pointing resolutely.

"That way," she said, crossing to the edge of the roof and springing onto the next one over. The men followed her, Bucky boosting her or carrying her when the gap wasn't easily traversed. The pattern was familiar and easy for the duo.

She led them, largely in silence, across a number of roofs, back down to the streets via a garage and a dumpster. She wound through alleys, over more buildings and down again. Eventually, she came to a stop on the corner of a particularly neglected block. Graffiti everywhere, several broken windows, walls smeared with grime. Several of the buildings were fenced off and slated for demolition. It was no great loss; the buildings were squat and ugly, without decoration or apology.

All three regarded the desolate street in silence.

"Nice place," Steve commented, earning a glare from Bucky and an amused twitter from Halina, which got her a glare of her own.

Clearing her throat, she pointed to a red brick monstrosity wedged between a crumbling concrete tragedy and a dirty, white excuse for a shopfront with loft.

"It's in there," she said.

"Alright. You wait here," Bucky instructed, striding forward with Steve in tow.

Halina squeaked indignantly and dodged into their path. "What? Why?" she demanded.

"It might not be safe. For any number of reasons," he frowned.

She pursed her lips in annoyance. "True. So why don't _you_ wait here, and I'll go with Steve," she suggested saccharinely.

"That doesn't even make sense," he scoffed. Steve looked uncomfortably between the two and edged away slightly.

"Right," she exclaimed.

"Right," he echoed. "So just stay here, and we'll be back in a minute." With that he slid around her and headed for the building.

Halina looked as though she'd been slapped. Steve looked at her nervously, following Bucky slowly. She recovered from the shock and scrunched her face into a frown. With a harsh scrunching of her fist, Bucky's head disappeared to be replaced by a perfectly black sphere. He froze completely, standing stock straight, but Steve jerked.

"What the hell is that?" he exclaimed.

"Nothing. Just darkness," she reassured him with a shrug. "Good luck finding clues without being able to see anything," she cooed smugly.

"Steve can be my eyes," he ground out, shoulders tense.

"If he tries, he'll be left in the dark too. That just leaves me," she laughed.

Bucky whirled to face them, striding back toward her. She shrieked and laughed, dodging away from him and making far too much noise to effectively evade him. She danced out of his reach several times before he lunged and trapped her against his chest.

Like a light bulb being switched on, Bucky's head reappeared. Or, from his perspective, the world reappeared, having him blink at the sudden light as his eyes adjusted.

They stared at each other, neither moving to break the close hold he had on her.

"Why don't you want me to come?" she asked, her good humour carrying on, despite the dismayed tilt of her brows.

"If someone's there, you could get hurt. And either way, it may not be a good idea to go back there," he warned.

"I've made it through a lot of dangerous situations," she pointed out. Giving him a comforting pat on the cheek, she continued, "I promise I'll tell you if it's too much."

He sighed before nodding in defeat, releasing her from his gentle grip. "Fine."

She smiled triumphantly, gliding down the cracked footpath to the hideous pale building, its white paint peeling off the abused façade. She led them in the front entrance and up a staircase in the central hallway.

The walls were water damaged and smashed through in places. The rooms were empty of furniture, only rubbish adorning the rotting floor. Up another flight, and then into what had been the apartment above the shop downstairs, by the looks of things.

Bucky noted with idle bemusement that someone had uprooted the toilet from wherever the bathroom was and placed it in exactly the middle of the living room. Spray painted onto the walls and floor in red and black were pentagrams and sigils, augmented by some of the usual random crap. He wondered what kind of ritual required a toilet bowl.

She led them to the balcony door, which actually leant against the wall right next to the doorway, letting in thrashing wind. Had the rest of the building been anything other than a complete dump, maybe someone may have been irked by the breeze slamming about the room. It certainly made the place draughty.

From their nerve-rackingly flimsy balcony they jumped the divide onto a balcony on the brick building.

Once inside Halina crept up a flight of stairs to the floor above, pausing at the door to the stairwell.

"It's on this floor. Do you want to sweep it first?" she breathed next to Bucky's ear when he crouched behind her.

He nodded and ghosted into the corridor and dingy apartments beyond, even more depressing now that they were abandoned than they must have been when the place was new.

A minute later, he returned, boots crunching on broken glass and debris as he walked more casually back to them.

"No one's here," he informed them.

Halina went straight for one of the apartments, so naturally the other two followed. There was a dirty mattress in the middle of the room, sporting a number of stains, unappealing as they were mysterious, along a few recent-looking blood stains. Around it were arranged an assortment of items that could be random were it not for the sinister setting.

Duct tape. Several large batteries. A bloodied knife. A few rags. A large, half-empty bottle of water.

Steve took in the spread, sent Halina a pitying look, and moved on to the rest of the room, looking for clues as to what the perpetrator might do next as opposed to what he had already done.

Bucky stood over the mattress, breathing heavily, fists clenched as he tried to beat down the rage that the scene sparked. He looked about for Halina, finding her hovering a several feet away, not looking at the mattress but not doing anything else, either.

He approached her slowly. She looked up at him with a quivering lip. He held his arms out, giving her the choice to take comfort in his presence if she wanted. Now, more than ever, it was important that she wasn't trapped or pressured.

She stepped forward, snaking her arms around his waist and pressing her face into his chest. He rubbed her back soothingly, keeping the movement of his hand slow and steady, venturing to do the same with his voice.

"Did he hurt you here?" he asked softly. He felt her nod.

"He knew that electricity is part of the wiping process. When I didn't want to follow orders…" she trailed off. "He tried a few other things, but… I don't think he really knew what he was doing."

He frowned at that. Hydra was good at a lot of things, effective use of torture and control of their assets near the top of that list. Random electrocution and crude torture really weren't their style, unless they were trying to conceal their involvement.

"There's not much here. Nothing to tell us who this guy is or what he's trying to do," Steve called from the drab bathroom off the main room.

Halina broke away from Bucky, walking to the mattress and hesitating for only a moment before lying down. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the last few weeks of her life. They had a strange quality to them, not the grey, slippery sheen that her recollections from many years ago carried, but a confused quality that was both manic and sluggish. She could trace the way she wavered under the years of conditioning by the sense her memories carried.

She tried to go over every moment he had spent in her presence for something useful, but nothing raised a flag in her mind. After several minutes, she stood, frustrated. Brushing vigorously at her clothes, she glared at the filthy mattress.

"The best chance of finding out what he wants is to ask him," she declared.

Steve gave her a ' _what the hell are you talking about'_ look as he leant against a wall that was thankfully more solid than those of the adjacent building, even retaining tattered patches of garish floral wallpaper.

"Shall we just post an ad in the paper then?" Bucky suggested sarcastically. "Local Heroes Seek Villain – Have You Been Almost Murdered By This Man?"

She laughed, ignoring the acidic edge in his voice. "Not quite. He'll return soon to rendezvous, and if I pretend to be still pursuing the mission then perhaps I can get him to reveal more of his motivation," she suggested. Bucky was shaking his head before she finished speaking.

"No way," he said emphatically.

"Why do you say that?" she protested.

"It's far too dangerous," he replied with determination like solid steel.

She crossed her arms. "Just because I'm beyond their mind control, it doesn't mean I've forgotten how to make use of my talents," she pointed out. "I'm not a puppet whose strings have been cut – more of a doll finally let out of the box."

He folded his arms to match, standing up straighter as he dug his heels in. "That's not what I'm saying. It's just an unnecessary risk," he argued.

"It's not particularly risky, I seriously don't think he'll be able to tell anything is different," she shot back.

"You shouldn't feel like you have to put yourself back into this kind of situation. You have a right to be happy and safe and away from all this crap," he said more softly, eyes smouldering at her with something like empathy.

She let her arms fall by her side, stepping forward to peer up at him with a small smile. "I don't feel like I have to. I'm choosing to, because I want to help, and I want to stop everyone who's responsible for whatever is going on," she said earnestly. Determination burned in her eyes as she spoke, and he knew this was one fight he wasn't going to win.

Steve cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I think it sounds more than worth considering. God knows we've done crazier things than that," he joked, laughter dying on his lips at Bucky's unimpressed look.

"I won't do anything crazy," she reassured, patting his forearm. "Unless the situation calls for it."

Steve stepped in before he could reply to that.

"So, what do you have in mind?" he asked, louder than necessary.

"He'll come back here, maybe tonight, maybe in the next few days. I'll wait here for a while to see if he shows up. When he does, I'll act normally and try to get a bit more information out of him," she said.

"Any ideas on the best place for us to set up? We don't want to tip him off, but we need to be able to reach you quickly if something goes wrong," Steve put in, squaring his shoulders as though ready to leap to her defence at any moment.

"Maybe the next building over, or the one across the street?" she suggested with a shrug. "Definitely not the one we used to come in here, there's nowhere really to hide."

"I'm going to scout for the best place to set up. You two head back to the motel, I'll meet you back there," Bucky said, looking put out but not furious. Receiving a nod from the other two, he strode out the door and out of view.

Steve sighed lightly, then looked to Halina. "You ready to head back?" he said, tipping his head toward the exit.

"Sure," she agreed, leading back the way they'd come.

They walked through the dilapidated neighbourhood in silence for a while, before Steve spoke up.

"You're brave to be doing this, and I hope you know that Buck and I are going to our best to make sure you stay safe, no matter what," he declared solemnly.

She looked up at him, wide brown eyes searching his face for something but making no reply.

He met her gaze but didn't let the silence lie for long. "I know when I woke up, came out of the ice… It was hard to know what was right and what I should do. I'm still working that out. That you're taking control of your mind and your life is no small feat," he said seriously.

She blinked at him slowly, before a smile pulled at her full lips. "Thank you," she replied quietly, looking ahead again.

He nodded, resolving to leave her be for the time being. Lord knew she could do with the time to think and process things.

That resolve lasted nearly two blocks. His natural inclination to fill any silence, paired with noticing something of mild interest had him regaling her with stories. She listened, laughed, even teased him occasionally. It was easy to forget that she was still fighting for control in her own head.

 **l l l**

Halina shivered as she sat alone, in the middle of the room. It was cold, and though her jacket had been warm enough on the way over, sitting still for an hour left her stiff and chilled.

She was bored, too. Something to be said for mind-wiping was that if it's blank, you don't get bored. You would only ignore stimuli that your controller didn't programme you to respond to. And that very fact meant she couldn't let on that she was bored.

Which meant doing absolutely nothing for half the night in case their mystery man showed up.

She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder, to try to see Bucky in the building across the way. She doubted she would be able to pick him; he knew how to hide. Steve was upstairs, ready to leap to her defence should she somehow reveal herself, while Bucky kept watch and provided sniper cover.

She hoped the man didn't physically threaten her, as he had done a few times before, lest he be shot in the head before they got any information.

Her head snapped up when a scuffling noise came from the hallway. Ungainly footsteps approached, far removed from Steve's efficient stride or the determined gait of her older ally. She recognised this tactically unwise stomping.

He had come.

Fighting the urge to attack him or camouflage herself, she sat still and emptied her expression as he entered the room.

"Добрый вечер, Малыш," he said clumsily as he came to stand over her.

She stared blankly ahead, refraining from responding as she knew she ought to.

He pulled out his mobile phone, if her friends were right in their judgement of what his strange technology was, and fiddled with it for a minute as he often did before speaking.

"Have you succeeded in killing the mark?" he asked haltingly, as though reading without great confidence.

"Нет," she answered, without letting the anxious lavender light seep out with the negative reply.

"Why?" he demanded, without needing to consult the device for a translation.

"There has been no opportunity – they evaded my shots. I am devising a new plan," she responded.

He huffed angrily as he stabbed at the screen for a while, working to decode her answer. She held back a sigh – it would be suspicious to suggest they speak in English now, but it was frustrating when he clearly spoke Russian so badly.

"It had better work," he mumbled in English.

She held back a fist pump at the opportunity to speed up the process.

"They are experienced operatives. It will take a number of attempts to successfully neutralise them," she said.

He looked dumbstruck, staring in shocked silence before turning an unattractive red. "You can speak English perfectly?" he thundered, leaning over her and raising a hand as though to strike her.

It was a small miracle that she kept her demeanour even at that. A small red dot appeared on his forehead, unbeknownst to him, to reassure her that Bucky was there and ready to stop him if it came down to it.

"Well enough," she said blandly. "It is an important skill in my service to Hydra."

He looked thoroughly pissed off, fists clenched. She hoped he didn't take a swing – he didn't stand a chance. If Bucky didn't shoot him or send Steve in, she might beat him to death if he pushed her.

"What support is available in this mission?" she asked abruptly, eager to distract him.

"What do you need?" he ground out, leaning back only just. It was enough to encourage her, and apparently reassure Bucky because the little dot disappeared. The space allowed between her compact form and his doughy frame let her breathe a little easier.

She blinked relaxedly, hoping the lack of antagonism would encourage him to calm down. "Nothing as of yet. It is good to know the resources available when planning," she explained.

He sighed with irritation. "You need guns and ammo, I know a guy. Otherwise, just make it work. I got you the tracker thing, what else could you possibly want?" he huffed.

She didn't think a response was necessary, and remained quiet. He seemed agitated and rash. An easy target, normally. She wasn't sure how to get more information out of him without breaking from the blank persona he had come to expect.

She didn't think he was Hydra, and knew Bucky had suspicions of the same thing. With a mental shrug, she decided to test that hypothesis.

"What is the Theta Date?" she asked.

"What?" he said dumbly.

"Theta Date for this mission," she clarified.

"What do you mean by 'Theta Date'?" he asked through gritted teeth.

She met his gaze but kept her face disconcertingly empty. "The date of conclusion for the mission – the date other assets give over to a Theta Team to complete the ends at any cost," she elaborated, a small part of her consciousness noting the ease with which she wove lies with sadness.

"Oh, uh… there isn't one. Just finish it as soon as possible," he instructed.

When she declined to respond again, he turned on a heel and swaggered out of the room.

She stayed where she was, and after a few minutes, Steve came in.

"Halina?" he called softly.

She jerked, snapped back to herself by his smooth voice. She met his clear blue eyes, offering a tired but proud smile when she read the concern there.

Brow still furrowed, he came over and sat next to her on the floor.

"It was strange, pretending to be empty again," she croaked quietly. "But it was good, to have someone tell me what to do and know that I can choose, that I can judge for myself what is the right path."

A few tears tracked down her cheek as she spoke, but her voice gained a steely quality that earned a smile from him. He placed a supportive hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to gather herself.

"Let's get out of here," she said breathily, voice a bit think from emotion. She was glowing just a little, but she didn't seem overwhelmed and stood steadily.

A glance out the window revealed Bucky standing in the middle of the street, rifle held loosely in front of him. He wasn't actively pointing at anything, but tension emanated from hi steadily enough that she could see it from floors away, and had no doubt he was ready to gun down anything that moved suspiciously.

"Please," Steve said eagerly. Apparently Halina wasn't the only one given the creeps by the place.

 **l l l**

Captain America, ever the early riser, had gone to bed not long after they had returned home.

Bucky had spent at least two hours cleaning and organising weapons and doing whatever else in his room, and Halina had not seen him in that time.

As midnight approached, the night found her huddled on the couch she was to use as a bed, small hands wrapped around a mug of the bland tea the motel had provided several bags of but neither of the men had wanted to drink.

She stared at the television as the zany stars of an old sitcom bumbled and jibed their way about New York. The grainy quality of the footage and the style worn by the actors called to her, reminded her of the time before she was taken.

She laughed weakly at their antics and incredulous commentary for several episodes as they played back to back, too tired to really invest in the narrative.

She was hopeful – that she could be free again, that they would conquer this threat, that things were going to only get better – but she was tired. It was a struggle to fight her way through her own thoughts sometimes, and it drained her, but she doubted she would be able to sleep.

As the main character took the stage to deliver the monologue that would set up the next episode, the sound of a door opening easily snatched her attention away from the screen.

Bucky emerged from his room, looking tired and wearing tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. He flopped down on the other end of her couch.

"What are you watching?" he asked.

"Not really sure. It's funny though," she responded with a helpless shrug.

Bucky continued to stare at the screen, grunting slightly at her comment but otherwise ignoring her.

She studied him for a minute, muting the ads as soon as they came on. "Are you okay, Bucky?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah," he mumbled as he rubbed a hand over his face. "It's just a bit rough, you know? I was finally meant to have a chance at being normal for a while, and now… Maybe I should just give up on the idea altogether. And watching you have to go back to them, even for just a little while, evening just pretending, it doesn't sit well."

She watched him stare dejectedly at the silent woman gesturing enthusiastically at a roll of paper towels, a sympathetic baby blue rolling out onto the furnishings.

"I'm sorry. If anyone deserves a break, it's you," she soothed.

"Don't apologise, it's not your fault," he said.

"It's not yours, either," she said shrewdly. "Why do you feel guilty? I can tell you do."

He finally looked at her exasperatedly. "I need to make sure you're safe, I have to protect you, and yet you still get put into situations like today," he agonised.

"I'm alright. I'm as protected as I need to be. You're doing fine," she pointed out with a cheeky smile.

He smiled slightly back at her, then darkened. "I remember it, you know. I stalked you, I kidnapped you, hurt you," he confessed in a whisper.

"I do too," she said evenly.

He jerked and met her steady gaze, the haunted look in his steely blue eyes masked by shock. He looked like he wanted to say something, but when he opened his mouth, no sound emerged.

"You wouldn't have, had you had the choice. What you do now that you are in control is what counts," she said earnestly. "I would say I forgive you, but there is nothing to forgive."

A wild array of emotions danced over his face as he stared at her, and she resolutely looked back. She sniffled quietly after a while, prompting him to stand up.

"I think I'm going to try and sleep," he said abruptly. She nodded and offered a watery smile from her spot curled against the arm of the sofa.

"You're welcome to sleep in my room again if you want," he added.

With a warmer smile and a shift to blossom-pink light, she unfolded herself from the couch and followed him back to his room.

He climbed into bed and she followed closely. Hesitating for only a second, she shimmied closer and pressed against his side. He brought up an arm to stroke her hair, and she felt herself relaxing as she'd failed to do for hours in front of the TV.

Soothed by Bucky's deep breathing and clean scent, she drifted to sleep gladly as she curled in closer.


End file.
